


Across a Bridge of Magpies

by Maayacola



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 14:46:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maayacola/pseuds/Maayacola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>There are two timelines: Late 2012, and movie-time (1853/54.) The poems are all from the <i>Ogura Hyakunin Isshu,</i> a famous anthology of classical Japanese <i>tanka</i> compiled in the thirteenth century by Fujiwara no Sadaie. Thanks to Bellemelody, and my amazing, amazing pre-readers, who very patiently read this a million times and offered spectacular advice. (a special thank you to my Greenpig *squish* who helped me more than she'll ever know. I'll never leave you bleeding on the side of the road!)</p><p>JE Remix fic</p>
    </blockquote>





	Across a Bridge of Magpies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bellemelody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellemelody/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The story of the brave Samurai and his beautiful Geisha...](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/14230) by bellemelody. 



> There are two timelines: Late 2012, and movie-time (1853/54.) The poems are all from the _Ogura Hyakunin Isshu,_ a famous anthology of classical Japanese _tanka_ compiled in the thirteenth century by Fujiwara no Sadaie. Thanks to Bellemelody, and my amazing, amazing pre-readers, who very patiently read this a million times and offered spectacular advice. (a special thank you to my Greenpig *squish* who helped me more than she'll ever know. I'll never leave you bleeding on the side of the road!)
> 
> JE Remix fic

*********

 

In this ancient house,  
Paved with a hundred stones,  
Ferns grow in the eaves;

 

But numerous as they are,  
My old memories are more.

\--Emperor Juntoku, 100

-

Kame is interested when he gets the script from his manager. Of course he's interested; Kame has been trying, for a while now, to do something serious with his acting, and a period piece would be the perfect thing to show people he's not just an idol, good for nothing but manga adaptations and fan service. 

Then Kame reads the script. Once he starts reading, he can't put it down. His hands quiver as he turns each page, excitement churning in his gut. This part...it's perfect for him. It flirts with androgyny, requires a nuanced performance, and Kame knows he has to have it. He hasn't been interested in anything in a really long time. Kame's a Johnny, he's learned to ignore what he wants in favor of what he must do. It's exciting to feel something other than apathy. He clings to it.

He calls his manager the next morning, as soon as his eyes crack open, fumbling for his mobile. "I have to audition for this part."

"Kamenashi, it's 5:30 in the morning. Can this wait until at least 7?"

"No," Kame replies resolutely. "It absolutely cannot."

His manager sighs, and it whistles through the phone line. "Okay, Kamenashi, which part is this?"

"The Tokugawa Shogunate epic. I want it."

Kame hears the sound of shuffling papers, and then his manager sighs again. "Okay, I'll set up an audition."

Exhaling deeply, Kame finally eases his tight grip on the phone. "Thank you," he says.

-

The audition goes well. Kame already can feel the tendrils of the character wrapping around him and weaving through him, like spools dropping down on a loom, turning threads into sheets of silk.

He can feel the transformation happening, same as it always does.

And then.

Despite everyone's expectations, Kame gets the part in his first serious film. 

And it's a high-budget period piece. Kame plays a man disguised as a woman, which sounds ridiculous but against the odds, the story pulls it off. Kame is wary of playing off his looks in that way, but the part is too interesting, too cool, to pass up.

Kame's always had a thing for kimono, anyway.

-

He shouldn't be surprised, but somehow he is. This is the way things always go, like a cliché or like the predictable plot of a _Getsu9_ serial drama. They are drawn to each other, after all, like magnets or like two moons orbiting around the same planet in alternate directions.

Kame looks across the table at Jin's shuttered expression, and wonders if this whole thing is going to work at all.

Then they do the read-through, and Jin's familiar voice washes over him, and Kame forgets the distance between them in favor of enjoying the lovely timbre of Jin's speech.

They play best friends. How totally, utterly, imperfect.

Somehow, though, the script casts a spell, and Kame and Jin, together, even just reading, still blend together so, so well. Jin's always been great with the harmony, Kame remembers, and it always sounds so good.

"Kamenashi, your portrayal of Honoko is as spot-on as it was at auditions!" the producer gushes, and the director nods enthusiastically.

"And Akanishi, _wow,_ I knew you were our first choice for a reason," the director adds, clapping his hands together like a child. Jin smiles, just a little, in that way he started doing in professional situations after he decided he was too old to grin all big and wide at praise. It's a detached smile, and Kame doesn't like it.

-

"Look," Jin says, eyes obscured by opaque sunglasses. "Let's just do this, okay?" 

Kame shrugs and tries to shrink in on himself, but somehow he still feels exposed in front of Jin, like he's naked, and he doesn't even know if Jin is even looking at him. 

Jin is frowning, so he probably is. He only seems to frown around Kame and the press. Whenever Kame sees pictures of Jin with Yamashita and Shirota and whoever else Jin is partying with, he's always laughing or smirking or grinning some stupid cheesy grin that Kame hasn't seen directed at him since he was nineteen. "Okay," Kame says, quietly, and Jin's frown etches even deeper in his face.

"I don't know if they cast us together for a publicity stunt or what but--"

"They cast us together," Kame interrupts, because he doesn't like the idea that Jin might think he's been brought into this project solely for the rumors, "because we're both the right people for our parts."

And it's been a while since Kame has been close enough to Jin to know every nuance, but he still knows Jin, knows Jin’s heart. Kame can see Jin written all over Saigou Takamori, the character he's playing-- can see little bits of Jin in all of the dialogue too. 

And Honoko is not too different from Kame himself, either. 

Jin grunts. "Whatever. The point is, Kamenashi, don't get in my way, alright?"

"I wasn't planning on it," Kame answers, after a moment of silence. Jin walks off, toward his dressing room, and Kame remembers when Jin used to lace their fingers together and drag Kame along with him.

-

Truly, this is where  
Travelers who go or come  
Over parting ways--

Friends or strangers--all must meet:  
The gate of "Meeting Hill."

\--Semimaru,10

-

The hiss of silk is an idle whisper in the cool night air, the rustling of navy robes and crimson obi the only sound as Honoko prepares. Twilight is stealing across the okiya as the dresser lifts layer after layer onto Honoko's outstretched arms, fastening each undergarment carefully and deliberately, until only the intricate outer robe remains. 

Tonight the moon is red. Honoko wonders if it's an omen.

Honoko applies the thick white paste to an already white face, taking care to smooth across moles and marks, leaving a white mask in the wake of adept hands. This disguise, of paints and silks and charcoals, allows Honoko to pretend, in the dim light of lanterns and oil, that all is well in the streets of Gion. Honoko can bury a heart in turmoil beneath false laughs and the gentle swirl of sake, and dance and dance until the dawn breaks through, covering the streets in light once more.

Sometimes Honoko remembers bruised knees and split lips and the soothing touch of a father's hand, pulling up by the wrist. "Once more, Hiko," the man says, and then Honoko remembers spitting out a mouthful of blood and settling in, lifting arms high above and bracing for impact.

But mostly, Honoko's memories have faded like the ink on the parchment of street signs, bleached by the harsh, unforgiving sun of the Hanamachi, and the only things that remain are brief snatches of smiling faces and aching shoulders. Honoko only indulges those memories in the light of day, for in the night, Honoko must be empty, waiting to be filled up with other people's stories. Honoko has no room inside, at night, for reminiscing. 

Teahouses, for Honoko, are both prisons and stages, and Honoko is both captive and performer. While Honoko sings and dances for enthusiastic witnesses amongst the _tatami_ and bamboo that surround them, Honoko is free in a way that can only happen when Honoko is wrapped up inside of music. When Honoko is there, in that place where the only sound is Maki playing the _shamisen_ and the sound of silken kimono moving deliberately with every step Honoko takes, there's no thoughts of before, and no thoughts of what could have been. There is only now, the subtle shift of straw beneath socked feet, and the pull of muscles and quickening breath as Honoko moves towards the climax. There is only the burning in Honoko's throat as the notes burst out into the air. 

When it's over, and the world comes back into focus, Honoko remembers that there are iron chains of debt that hold fast to covered ankles, and that there isn't really any such thing as freedom, after all.

-

"Cut!" the director calls, and Kame shakes and tries to come back to himself. "Kamenashi, perfect," the director says, and the assistant director, who'd been anxious about casting Kame based on idol status, at first, looks impressed. "It's like Honoko is here!"

This part, it's the first thing he's wanted in years. It has to work; otherwise Kame will never let himself want anything again.

Jin is watching with mild interest as he prepares to film his first scene, but when Kame looks over at him directly, meeting his eyes, he looks away.

-

The rumors arrive on the wind long before the man himself arrives in Kyoto. 

_The Brave Samurai_. Honoko hears tell of him in the streets, and in small clusters of women shopping for vegetables on the way to and from the hairdresser. Honoko's clients talk of him in hushed tones, and envy and awe color their descriptions of him as impossibly capable, undefeatable, and courageous. From the other geisha, Honoko hears only of his classically handsome face, with his strong cheekbones and large eyes, and of his charming smile, which he seems to offer up at no cost to anyone who passes him on the road.

Maki smiles softly as she whispers to Honoko, while Mr. Tanaka combs hot wax through Honoko's long hair. "He's coming," Maki says, the apples of her cheeks flushing red with glee. "The Brave Samurai. Do you think he's as great as they say? He is from the Saigou family, you know."

Honoko can't help but feel excited. A man who can decimate his opponents with his eyes closed. A man who honors the true tradition of the samurai, if rumors hold any weight. Honoko spent many years studying the code of _Bushido,_ and Honoko has spent just as many years searching for someone besides Honoko's father who meets those exacting standards. "It doesn't matter what family he's from," Honoko replies firmly. "It only matters what he can do."

"Of course it matters what family he's from," Maki says chidingly. "Fortunes rise and fall for entire families, not for individuals." Maki wriggles in the chair to make herself more comfortable. "And the Saigou family has always produced strong samurai. Poor, but strong."

"That's true," Honoko says, and closes weary eyes. _Fortunes rise and fall for entire families_. Honoko knows that all too well. That is, after all, why Honoko exists at all.

Still, no matter what family he comes from, Honoko wants to meet this 'Brave Samurai.' Wants to meets a man worthy of the title of samurai, instead of the countless common louts who shame the profession of Honoko's father while they drink themselves sick in teahouses, while Honoko is forced to pour them more sake and compliment them on their prowess in battle. They make it seem right that the age of samurai is ending-- nothing more than spoiled thieves and grunt power, in a world that exists primarily in stifling peace, save for territory disagreements and family vendettas.

Honoko hopes that somehow, Saigou is everything that a samurai should be. Something that makes it easier for Honoko to see the code that her father died for in action. Someone who makes it easier to live with what Honoko has become.

Hope, Honoko thinks, is like a tiny fragile butterfly breaking free from its silken cocoon at the start of spring, unfolding soft, wet wings to the warm air. Beautiful, and colorful and full of potential. But Honoko also knows that a smart bird, a clever hummingbird, or a hungry canary, waits for that moment right before that new butterfly spreads it's wings, and snatches it from it's perch, and eats it alive. 

Sometimes Honoko never gets to see what color the wings are after all.

-

If I see that bridge  
That is spanned by flights of magpies  
Across the arc of heaven

Made white with a deep-laid frost,  
Then the night is almost past.

\-- Otomo no Yakamochi, 6  
-

Orihime, the Princess of Weaving, wove beautiful clothing by the banks of the Milky Way. Her father, the King of the Heavens, was enchanted by the cloth that she wove, and so she worked laboriously every day to weave it. But Orihime, who spent every day alone weaving, longed to fall in love. Her father noticed her unhappiness, and arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi, the Cowherd Star, who lived and worked on the other side of the Milky Way. 

When the two met, they fell immediately into deep love. But once they got married, Orihime neglected, often, to weave cloth for her father, and Hikoboshi’s cows wandered untended around the heavens. And so the King became furious, and forbade the two lovers from being together, separating them to either side of the Milky Way. But moved by his daughter’s sadness, the King allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month every year, as long as Orihime continued her weaving. However, there was the broad expanse of Milky Way between them and it could not be crossed. Orihime cried so much that a swarm of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross. 

It is said that if it rains on _Tanabata,_ the magpies cannot come, and the two lovers must wait until the following year to meet. 

-

The first scene they film together is scheduled for a Wednesday. Kame comes straight to the set from a four o'clock video shoot, where he and the other guys were filmed singing and posing flamboyantly in front of the sunrise. They only had a few takes to get it right, and luckily Koki was too tired to do that thing he sometimes does, where he drops his pants in the middle of a perfectly good cut and no one notices until they're all watching the playback.

But Kame is nothing if he isn't professional, and he doesn't let any sign of his fatigue show as he sits next to Jin at a fold-out table, dressed in full make-up and kimono. Jin is leaning as far away from him as possible while still sitting next to him. Kame wonders if he smells bad-- he _had_ shared a dressing room with Tatsuya that morning, and Tatsuya's aftershave is usually pretty tragic. But then he remembers that this is Jin, and Kame could smell like pizza and unicorns and Jin would still be leaning away like Kame is contagious.

"You guys ready to film?" the director asks, and Kame, out of habit, smiles politely, like always.

"Of course," Kame says smoothly. Jin snorts, and mutters _'phony,'_ under his breath, and stands up. Kame looks over at him sharply, but Jin isn't looking back.

"Let's rock and roll," Jin says, cracking his knuckles.

-

"Today is the Brave Samurai's birthday!" One man cheers, and Saigou smiles tightly. He _is_ handsome, Honoko thinks, with his high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes. His hair is pulled back tightly, and it accentuates his features. His eyelashes cut dark lines into his pale skin every time his eyes flicker closed. "Saigou Takamori is twenty-seven today! As his present, we've arranged for one of the most celebrated dancers in Kyoto to perform and stay with us for the evening!"

 _'Takamori'_ Honoko thinks. A strong name. It means ‘prosperity’.

Honoko rises slowly from a kneeling position on the floor, kimono flickering green in the candle light. "It's my pleasure," Honoko says, and Takamori's eyes slip over to Honoko when Honoko speaks. Something inside of Honoko pinches, like a fresh cut or like a too-hard tug at the ends of one's hair. 

It doesn't matter though. Honoko wants to know Takamori. And to do that, first Honoko must dance. Dancing, for Honoko, is a placeholder. For a lot of things, really, but Honoko doesn't allow those sorts of thoughts.

-

Jin is a strong name, too. It means ‘humanity’.

-

There's something missing, from Honoko's character. It hovers at the edges of Kame's vision, but he can't quite grasp it. Kame needs a different way to approach the relationship between Honoko and Takamori, but he isn't sure what it is.

"This story is about friendship, my _ass_ ," Jin grumbles when the director yells cut, moving away from Kame as quickly as he can manage. "These two dudes are totally gay for each other." 

"Don't exaggerate, they're just very close friends," Kame shrugs, hand reaching up to adjust the neck of his kimono.

"No way," Jin says. 

"We used to do stuff like that all the time when we were younger, and we were just friends." Jin's face goes still, and Kame guesses he doesn't want to be reminded of being friends with Kame. "Why are you so concerned about homosexuality, anyway?" Kame says, curious. "That sort of thing is very fluid. They don't have to be gay to be good for each other, and it's not gay to show affection toward someone of the same sex."

Jin narrows his eyes at him. "You would say that, wouldn't you? You're the one always cozying up to other boys on stage."

"You let Koki put on a blond wig and pretend to give you a blow job on stage, Akanishi. Don't be a hypocrite."

"Whatever, that's all in the past. I've moved on, obviously." Jin is scowling at the floor, refusing, as usual, to meet Kame's eyes. There's something about Jin's tone that sounds _off_ , maybe even defensive? Kame can't pinpoint it.

"Obviously," Kame echoes, and Jin suddenly looks up at him, and their gazes lock. Jin looks uncomfortable, a little scared and a little angry too. 

"The point is, I don't like acting gay anymore, not for a music video, not for a movie, not for anything. Not to sell some fake image. It's weird, and it's wrong, and I don't like it."

Kame doesn't have anything to say in response, so he doesn't speak. He doesn't care one way or the other. It's his job; it doesn't matter if he likes it or not. Jin huffs, and lifts up his script, thumbing through it anxiously, while Kame studies his profile. 

"I just think it shouldn't be a thing to sell records," Jin says finally. "Cause some people are actually gay, and it's... Not something funny. It's just life. And maybe it hurts them, to see it be all... pretend like that."

Kame wonders if Jin's got a friend that's gay, or something, or if this is some weird sensibility he picked up in America.

He thinks again about what Jin said, about their characters being gay for each other, and he thinks Jin might actually be kind of right, for once. _That's it_ , he thinks. What's missing from his portrayal. He's found his angle.

-

Takamori keeps staring at Honoko, making Honoko uncomfortable. "Why do you stare?" Honoko demands, the words coated in formality, but containing a sharp edge that no one but Honoko can get away with.

"There's something different about you," Takamori says, and they are the first words Honoko has heard him say all night. His voice is like a gentle breeze, or like a trickle of water from a tilting reed in a meditation garden. It's almost soothing.

"What do you mean?" Honoko asks, heart hammering in a too-small chest. "I'm just one of the flowers here for you to observe." Honoko looks downward modestly. Honoko knows how this show works. Honoko knows the rules of this game.

Takamori apparently doesn't. He reaches up and snags the tip of Honoko's sleeve, and though it is not a rough tug, it bares the smooth skin of Honoko's shoulder, causing a scandalized gasp to emerge from the geisha to Honoko's right. Takamori's eyes fixate on the glimpse of pale skin, and he doesn't cease his innocent tugging.

Takamori smells of sake, and of sweat. Honoko gives in easily to his pull, because he seems surprisingly gentle in comparison to his companions. It's unexpected, given his ruthless reputation, but power is charismatic. As Honoko falls toward Takamori, and into his solid embrace, Honoko doesn't turn to the side, as is proper, fast enough, which results in Honoko's face discovering the crook of Takamori’s neck, their chests meeting front to front, hard lines crashing against each other. Takamori releases a surprised gasp into Honoko's ear, audible only to Honoko beneath the catcalls of Takamori's fellow samurai. "You're a man," he whispers, and Honoko grimaces.

"Don't say anything," he whispers back anxiously, into the soft skin of Takamori's collarbone, which makes Takamori shudder.

"I won't," Takamori breathes, and the sensation lingers on the sensitive skin of Honoko's ear. It tingles, and it burns at the same time.

"Saigou has picked the best of them already!" One man jeers, and the other samurai laugh raucously. Honoko expects Takamori to join in on the loud cheering, or to give Honoko's secret away, but he does neither. Instead, he smiles lightly and takes another small sip of sake, his skin already flush and warm from the rice wine. "Only top choice for the bravest samurai in Japan!" the loud man continues. Honoko can feel Takamori wince at the moniker, and curiosity bubbles up in his veins. 

He has questions about Takamori that will never be answered, he knows, because Takamori will be gone in a few hours, leaving his life just as quickly as he entered it. A man of legends, come and gone like so many words in a ballad. "A private tea?" Honoko asks, before he can think better of it. Honoko has never offered one to a patron before. 

Maki looks at Honoko, aghast. Honoko returns her stare evenly, and Maki furrows her brow an nods, before lifting her shamisen. "A short song, my lord samurai?" Maki says to the other men in the room, and Satsumi claps her hands together in delight. "Shall I sing?" The samurai cheer, and Satsumi pours another round of sake for them all, as Honoko leads a confused Takamori into a back room, wandering through a maze of tatami-lined hallways and walls of cured bamboo.

-

The director stops the scene, to change camera angles, and Kame shakes himself. Jin is believable in his role as Takamori, but for some reason, Kame can only see him as Jin. In the nuance of his face, the flicks of his wrist...it's _Jin_ , just Jin, that Honoko is reacting to. In those moments, Kame is thinking of himself as Honoko, but Jin, for some reason, is some weird amalgam of Saigou Takamori and Jin, and the blur is making it hard to concentrate.

Kame decides not to fight it, because it is as if the role was written for Jin, and Jin's spirit shines through no matter what he does or what he says.

-

"Here," Honoko says, and Takamori, _Jin_ , nods.

"I have so many questions," Jin says suddenly, when Honoko kneels to slide the door closed. "I'm afraid you're going to walk out of here and out of my life before I find out the answer to any of them."

Honoko turns back to look at him. He's earnest, like a newborn pup seeking approval, and it surprises Honoko, just a little, to see that look on a samurai's face. Honoko's father had always worn a stern expression, even to the last, when Honoko had shrouded his severed head and hidden it, in order to escape the shame of seeing it mounted on a wooden spear in the capitol. "Like what?" Honoko asks.

He's expecting any number of questions, but Jin continues to defy expectation. "What's your name?" he blurts, and then he bites his lip, as if he hadn't meant to ask. Maybe he hadn't.

"Honoko," he replies, confused. "That's no mystery."

"Not...that name," Jin says, still chewing on his bottom lip. "Your real name. Honoko is not a man's name."

Honoko looks down at the woven mat. His _name,_ he thinks, hasn't been said since he was fifteen years old, shivering in the dark as his mother screamed apologies over and over again as the cart drove away. _"Hiko, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Hiko! HIKO!"_ Honoko was old enough to fight back, then, but bereft of the will to, in the end.

Honoko takes a deep breath. "Hiko," he says, and the name sinks down into him, through the layers of silk and satin and cotton and into his skin. "My name is Hiko." It's a name Honoko hasn't let himself use in a long time, even in his own head. It's painful to be Hiko, and it's easier to be Honoko if he pretends that Hiko never existed. 

Jin whispers the name to himself. Honoko watches him, as Jin says it over and over, as if he is trying to record it in his memory. He looks into Honoko's eyes, as he repeats. _'Hiko,'_ his lips read, and Honoko feels inexplicably hot, like he's sitting directly next to a coal fire. He kneels down next to Jin and the heat flares hotter.

Then Jin rests his hands on the table. His nails are even and short and square. He has strange calluses on his fingertips, ones not caused by a sword. "You get to ask one now," Jin says, looking down. Honoko wants to see his eyes.

"Okay then." Honoko tentatively reaches out and touches one callous with the barest hint of his own fingertip. "What're these from? They aren't from a sword."

Jin looks at Honoko curiously. "How do you know that?" He questions, and Honoko frowns. 

"Isn't it my turn?" he asks testily, and it surprises a laugh out of Jin. 

"He bites!" Jin teases. "Wait until I tell my comrades that you bite." Jin rubs his finger along the wood of the table, pads of his fingers slipping into little groves in the grain. "I'm not a very good samurai," Jin says finally, and Honoko looks at him incredulously.

"What are you talking about? You're the Brave Samurai." Honoko leans forward. "And what's that got to do with the calluses?" 

"Everything," Jin says. "It has everything in the world to do with it."

Honoko narrows his eyes at Jin. "You haven't answered my question."

"I will. It's just kind of a long story." Jin looks at Honoko, his eyes wide and gleaming with a mixture of mischief and undisguised curiosity. "I'm sure yours is too."

Honoko's throat is suddenly dry, like he hasn't had any water in days. "I..."

Jin opens his mouth to speak. But then, he seems to think better of it, instead looking up at the ceiling, as if he is counting the slats of wood, or maybe trying to see through to the night sky.

A scream outside the sliding door grabs their attention. A long blade slices through the gathered bamboo of the door, and within moments, Honoko is on his feet, crouched, eyes alert. Jin is fumbling for his sword, his eyes already half-closed as if he is going to wish his enemy away.

Honoko looks at him blankly, for the only moment he can spare. _"I'm not a very good samurai"_ echoes in Honoko's mind now, and he looks at Jin through new eyes, as he would assess an opponent. 

Jin's palms are sweaty and only loosely gripping his sword. Honoko could knock it right out of his hands. Jin's pupils are dilated with something between fear and desperation, like he knows he's outmatched. He's drunk, too. _"I'm not a very good samurai,"_ he hears once more, in his mind, and Honoko nods to himself in decision.

The intruder shoves open the door, and Honoko is waiting. He trips him with his right foot, and steps forward with his left, slamming his elbow into the back of the man's neck. There's the sickening crunch of bone, but it's not one of Honoko's bones, and that's life when you're out to kill someone you don't know anything about. Honoko grabs the fallen man's katana, and leans over to tug at Jin. "Let's go," Honoko grunts. "Small rooms are a danger to us right now." Jin should know this, but Jin just nods quickly, like he's trusting Honoko to be in charge, and Honoko straightens his shoulders and guides them back to the main tavern. Many of Jin's friends are dead, blood pooling around them as they lie prone on the low wooden table, killed before they even drew their swords. Two of Jin's companions are missing, too, and Honoko is unsure if they tracked a fleeing enemy or fled themselves. 

Either way, only he and Jin are left to deal with this problem, as Satsumi and Maki seem to have escaped as well. And as Honoko looks at Jin, who has fallen to the floor in shock, looking at his dead friends surrounding them, Honoko's mouth tightens even further. Perhaps only _he_ is left to deal with this problem, in actuality. He shifts the katana in his grip.

The sword feels easy in Honoko's hands, like it hasn't been years since Honoko has properly held one without the tremor of fear that comes with it being forbidden. His arms still remember the movements, and the sound of moving air, as the blade slices in a downward arc towards the first assassin, is achingly familiar, singing bitterly in Honoko's ears. It's a lament of separation, and the misery of circumstance.

Jin is still sprawled on the floor, his katana held loosely in his hand as he watches with awe. His big eyes are even bigger in the glare of the lanterns, reflections of the fire dancing in his pupils as he stares at Honoko, jaw slack as he fumbles for his wits. "Get up," Honoko hisses, changing her grip to a more comfortable one. "Whether you're really an incredible warrior or not, you know how to use a sword, right?" Honoko narrows eyes at him, mouth pressed straight and even. "So use it to save your own life."

Jin pushes himself up, arms shaking, as Honoko fells another enemy, kimono slicing at the sleeve as a sword whooshes too close to the shoulder. The fabric gaps, and Honoko knows one pays in blood for damaged kimono, especially since a good geisha shouldn't be involved in a fight at all.

But for some reason, Honoko can't leave Jin to die. Honoko can't walk away from him and watch him be slaughtered, because that is not the way of the samurai, at least not the way his father taught it, and Honoko may be fallen, but he will not betray the memory of the brave man who remains vivid in his memory.

Jin finally pulls his sword loose, and brings down the enemy in front of him, a few drops of blood splattering across his face like in a macabre theater show. Jin squeaks a bit, before his jaw clenches and he moves forward. Honoko doesn't have time to watch him, not with the others realizing that it is Honoko who is the biggest threat, and he can only hope that Jin can protect himself. 

When the last of the intruders falls, with a muffled grunt, to the ground, Honoko turns to look grimly at Jin, who has somehow stumbled back to a wall, and slid down it. Still, he looks aware, and unharmed.

"Assassins." Honoko folds his arms across his chest.

"Samurai heads are worth a lot, these days," Jin replies. "Japan is changing. The samurai are a dying breed. Some people in the new government are quite willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of us, even though some of us don’t like the old government much, either."

"Don't be stupid," Honoko grunts, pulling up the neck of his kimono, which has slid down to reveal his collarbones. "They were after you. You're a figurehead. If they kill the Brave Samurai, the morale will crumble."

"Oh yes, I'm so brave," Jin says bitterly. "Clearly the perfect material for a figurehead." 

Honoko exhales. "You certainly aren't what I expected." _What I'd hoped for_ , he means, but Honoko should have known better than to hope for anything.

"You're not quite what I expected either. How can you...?"

"My father was a great teacher," Honoko replies, taking his torn sleeve and wiping it across his face to stop the steady drip of blood from his cheek. It's not his blood, but it's annoying all the same. 

"So if you can do...why are you here? Playing dress-up?"

"My mother...well," Honoko says. "There wasn't a lot of choice. And of all of my brothers are dead. There is only me."

Jin's eyes examine him closely, before he flushes and looks away. He hoists himself up, and Honoko thinks he might be trembling.

"So you're trapped. Just like me," Jin says, wiping his sword against his hakama. "Funny how life works, isn't it?"

"How are you trapped?" Honoko snaps, feeling bitterness gather on his tongue, mixing in with the adrenaline. "You have everything I've ever wanted."

Jin looks at him crossly, as if Honoko is being stupid. "I'm not you," Jin spits, before he turns away from Honoko to survey the dead bodies around them. He bends down and closes the eyes of one of his comrades, his face gentle and yet fierce. "I'm nothing like you. You were meant for this." Jin's hands are shaking. "The smell of blood makes me sick."

Honoko's hands, in contrast, are steady. "Then what are you doing?" Honoko snarls. Jin is spoiled, he thinks, and foolish if he doesn't take advantage of the world at his fingertips.

"You act like I have a choice any more that you do," Jin hisses, his eyes a little wet. He looks down at the face of the man before him, and drops to his knees. "He just got married. He has a newborn daughter he's never seen." 

Honoko swallows the bile that rises in his throat as the smell of blood and death finally penetrates his battle haze. "Let's get out of here," Honoko says, and he pulls Jin up. 

"And go where?" Jin asks.

"Anywhere," is the response, and Jin follows. 

Before they reach the door, a flicker of movement catches Honoko's eye. "Be still," he whispers quietly to Jin, and Honoko moves quickly, grabbing the shirt of masked man near the neck, and slamming him into the wall. "Please don't kill me," a stuttering voice crystal from behind the mask, and Honoko narrows eyes on his captive. He sounds too young to be here, in this battle. Too young to be fighting at all. But Honoko knows better than to underestimate the young-- he had become deadly himself before he was ten years of age.

Jin leans over and tears off the mask, revealing a boy of only perhaps fourteen years, as Honoko lifts a sword to his throat. "I'm sorry," Honoko says coldly but fairly, "but if you fight as a man, you should be prepared to die as a man."

"Honoko," Jin whispers softly, and Honoko flicks his eyes over to Jin, who is looking at the boy with a soft, transparent expression of pity. "Hiko," he corrects himself with a shake. "Hiko, please."

With a groan, Honoko loosens his hand, letting the boy slide down the wall into a puddle at his feet. "You," he sharply commands. "What's your name?"

"Yuto, my lady geisha."

"Well then, Yuto, go back to whoever sent you, and tell him that the Brave Samurai, Saigou Takamori, has defeated all who were sent against him, and spared your life."

"Yes...yes, my lady," is his gasping answer, and before Honoko can blink, he is running off into the street. 

"Thank you," a quiet Jin says, arms wrapped tight around himself. His face is tight, and Honoko curls his lip.

"You are not true samurai." Honoko levels an even stare at the man beside him. "It would have been best to kill him."

"I know," is the offered response, and Jin closes his eyes resignedly. "Don't you think enough people have died today?" His eyelashes are dark against the smooth skin of his cheek. "I know a place we can go." The faintest hint of sake lingers on his breath. 

-

Kame is breathing hard when the scene cuts. Jin's face is closed, when only moments ago it was so open. 

Jin is a good actor. It doesn't make sense that he is. He wasn't before, but somehow he is now.

And Kame thinks Jin, despite his protests about the nature of their characters' relationship, might have found his angle, too.

-

The last time Jin and Kame had gone to the _Tanabata_ festival together, it rained all day. Kame remembers the feeling of his soaked t-shirt plastered to his back.

He and Jin ate waffles anyway, ones in the shapes of different Doraemon, rivulets of water running down their forearms as they tried to keep the ice-cream inside them from sliding out to the asphalt. 

It rains every year after that too. Not that Kame goes without Jin. He’s too busy, anyway.

-

Night fades into brilliant morning.

"What is this place?"

"An untouched measure of peace," Jin answers. "A safe haven from the storm of factories and shrill bayonets and all the change."

Jin lies on his back, one hand on his stomach and the other thrown recklessly above his head. If he is attacked right now, Honoko thinks, he will die before he even has the chance to reach for his sword. Still, he looks charming, more like a boy than like a man, lying there arms akimbo gazing at the sky. Honoko wishes he was able to dream like that, but when he looks at the clouds all he can see is the coming rain.

"How are you samurai?" Jin asks, without turning his eyes from the sky. "Why are you hiding in kimono and makeup?"

Honoko frowns. "None of your business." Honoko is sitting two meters from Jin, eyes alert and body stiff. He still feels the sting of disappointment, and the remnants of danger.

Jin rolls on to his side to face Honoko, and wisps of hair settle whimsically around his face, escaping from the ponytail behind his head. "Why are you so cold? Have I offended you, somehow?" Jin has a gentle voice. Too gentle for a warrior. It doesn't scratch, like Honoko's does, it sort of melts, like spun sugar on a warm summer day, dripping down Honoko's spine. Honoko doesn't know why he's so upset at finding yet another person undeserving of what they've been handed.

"You won't understand," Honoko growls. "You have everything, and you waste it. You have everything I want."

"Everything, huh?" muses Jin, as he rolls back to his previous position. "What do you know about me?"

"The Brave Samurai," Honoko drawls. "With his famous Round Attack, striking fear into his enemies. Strong and handsome and cowed by no opponent."

"Ah, my legend," replies Jin, gazing fixedly at the rapidly darkening sky. "But that's not what I asked you." Jin grabs a fistful of grass in his broad hand. "You've seen me fight. Is that me? Are you just a quiet, beautiful geisha? Good for nothing but teahouse entertainment and a nice sing along accompaniment for drunkards?" 

With a wince, Honoko looks away. "What are you trying to say?"

"What I am trying to show you is that people are often not what they seem." Jin's voice is calm, and Honoko admires the lack of condescension in his tone. "You should know that better than most." 

It's not often that Honoko experiences the feeling of being utterly wrong, and it stings more than he'd like to admit. "You're right," he admits. "I'm sorry."

Jin swallows, and in the strong sunlight, he glows ethereal, like a jewel. He really is handsome, Honoko realizes with a twinge in his stomach, like the fluttering of a hummingbird. "That's alright," Jin replies. "You can always start again."

The sun is bright, and it burns Honoko's eyes. He doesn't see it often, spending most light hours asleep or preparing to venture out into the dark, to pour tea for strangers and familiar faces alike. His white make-up feels brittle and cracked on his skin, and he wants to wash it off, all of a sudden, so he can look at Jin with his real face. "My family has been samurai for nine generations," Honoko says into the silence. Jin doesn't move; he just keeps looking up at the clouds. But it's obvious he's listening, because his hands still in their casual exploration of grass blades, and an anxious tongue darts out to lick at his lips. "My father was samurai, and his father, and so on. And so my brothers and I were trained, as well."

"So why this?"

Honoko sighs. "It's not easy, to maintain a legacy, when you back the wrong lord." Honoko examines his hands, smoother now that he rarely holds a sword. His calluses are soft, and the leather-wrapped hilt has left grooves in the soft skin. "My family fell into ruin ten years ago. Everything was taken from us. I am...the only male survivor. Not that anyone knows I am a survivor." 

"Tamamoto family."

"Yes."

Jin exhales heavily. "The tragedy of your family is in at least thirteen bardic songs," Honoko is informed, and Jin's voice echoes through the empty clearing, despite the fact that his tone is soft and his volume is low. "Your father's bravery in the face of almost certain defeat is legendary." 

Honoko wants to weep, but he is samurai, and he is geisha, and neither are allowed to cry.

"At least," Jin adds with a dreamy smile that reveals that his thoughts are far away from the here and now, "you will always know his legends are true." Jin pulls up a fistful of grass. "This is not the legend I dreamed of making."

"What do you dream about?"

"Singing," Jin replies. "And dancing. And playing the koto." Jin sits up, and crosses his legs, as if he is seated in a teahouse beneath a wooden table, awaiting a shamisen performance or a fan dance. One of his hands goes up to his hair, and pulls out the ponytail, spilling long dark hair over his shoulders. "Sometimes, I dream of a place where I don't wear the chains of the samurai. The responsibility. I feel honor bound to stop the Shogunate, but I don’t trust this new government either. And I’m a figurehead for a movement that’s important. I dream of a world…Where I'm not the oldest son of the Saigou family. Where I wasn’t raised to think about these sorts of issues." 

Jin stares upward at the sky, at the clouds, like they offer some kind of answer to him. "Of a world where I'm never forced to steal someone else's life." 

The sunlight illuminates the column of his throat, making the skin glow gold. It hurts Honoko's eyes to look at him. "You," Jin says, with a quiet chuckle, "have everything I want."

Honoko stares at Jin with hooded eyes. "So you're trapped, like me," is all he can say, because there is nothing more to be said, and nothing to be done, either. This clearing is an oasis, a break from the world that exists outside of it, where Honoko dons paint and silks and sings of heroic deeds, while Jin is shoved head-first into battles he despises to give Honoko something to sing about. It's unfair, and it is the reality of their lives. "But I don't have time for dreams, Saigou."

“Takamori,” Jin whispers. “My name is Takamori.”

But for now, Honoko wants to pretend with Jin. Wants to see what he sees in the clouds. He stands and walks over to Jin, sitting next to him. Their shoulders brush, and Honoko inexplicably thinks of the gentle brush of Jin's lips against his ear in the teahouse, the way his body shivered from the proximity. It's shivering now, too. 

Jin turns to him, and his eyes rake across Honoko's face searchingly. He reaches into the sash at his waist, and pulls out a small rag, and then lifts the water canteen at his side, hanging from a thin rope. He wets the rag, and then takes Honoko's chin into his hand. "I want to see you," Jin says, and Honoko's breath stills in his chest.

Jin wipes the rag gently across Honoko's skin, removing the remains of the white paint and charcoal and blood from his face. Something about the action feels like _more_ to Honoko. Like more than his face is bare. Jin is looking inside of him, more and more with each wetting of the rag, with each soft swipe of cloth across his cheek.

"You're more beautiful like this," Jin tells him.

Honoko feels more beautiful. Something fills him; some strange emotion alights upon his heart like a butterfly on a magnolia blossom in the prelude to spring.

"I think we all have the right to dream, and to make it come true," Jin whispers. "Even a failed, clumsy, not-so-brave samurai like me."

Honoko doesn't know what possesses him to reach out and touch Jin's loose hair, but it feels softer than any robe Honoko has ever worn, and it slides between his fingers like the most expensive of embroidery threads. "This moment is going to end. We can't stay here forever," Honoko tells him helplessly.

"Until then," Jin whispers. "Until then, let's just be."

-

Like the morning moon,  
Cold, unpitying was my love.  
And since we parted,

I dislike nothing so much  
As the breaking light of day.

\--Mibu no Tadamine, 30

 

-

"Perfect, guys, exactly what I wanted," the director squeals, clapping his hands excitedly together like some kind of overly enthusiastic fauna in a Disney movie. "The tension! Excellent!"

Kame feels hot, like he's burning. His skin still tingles where Jin touched him, and his heart is still accelerating. It beats like a taiko drum in his chest, and he feels constricted by his dirty robes.

He chances a look at Jin, who still sits wide-eyed on the ground, his face flushed and his lips slightly parted as he breathes heavily. 

Kame turns away when Jin turns toward him, and he retreats like lightening to his dressing room. His hands grip the counter of his make-up table, and he's shaking.

Kame splashes water on his face. He looks at himself, in the mirror, with no make up, no glitter, nothing, all of it wiped away by Jin, no, _by Takamori,_ and thinks maybe he does like himself better like this. 

Jin walks in, suddenly, and he looks into the mirror too. Their eyes meet. 

"Kamenashi, what the fuck was that?" Jin says, and Kame can see anger and fear in his eyes.

"I'm playing my part," Kame says. "Nothing more, nothing less."

"But you..."

"You ran with it, Jin. You took what I gave you, and we acted." Jin is still flushed, and he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. "You said it yourself. They have a tension that's greater than friendship. You were right. The thing with the make-up was a nice touch, by the way."

It wasn't in the script, but Kame thinks it's perfect.

"Yeah," Jin says, and then his shoulders sag. "It's just...I _forgot,_ for a minute, that we were acting, and..."

"And?"

"You always did wear too much of that stuff," Jin says. "Make-up. I guess I just wanted...I mean, I thought Takamori would want to see the person underneath of it."

Kame nods. "It was a good call," he says. "Guess that's why you're the famous Hollywood actor, right?" Kame elegantly tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, and flicks his wrist to push back the kimono sleeve just a little.

"Why do you do that?" Jin asks. "Why do you become so...sucked in to your character? Even now it's like I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to Honoko."

"It's just a mask," Kame answers quickly. "Just one that's hard to take off." One he doesn't like to take off. It's _easier_ to be Honoko, with Jin, because Jin doesn't... "You don't hate Honoko."

Jin's eyes get wide, again, and he looks even more confused. The light keeps bouncing off the mirror, making Jin disappear and reappear, flickering like a ghost. "There's no need to hide behind anything, Kame. I don't hate you. There's nothing wrong with you." 

"There must be," Kame says in reply, and turns around to Jin, to actually _look_ at him. "Otherwise I don't understand what I did wrong." 

Jin's lips pull into a straight line across his face. "There's something wrong with me." his voice trembles. "And...You wore too much make-up, too many costumes. Even off stage," Jin says finally. "I couldn't see who you were anymore. And when I could see you, I still... I got confused. It's kind of like you think it's easier to be someone else. To not have to think about what you, what Kame, the real Kame, wants. And it drives me _insane,_ because I..." Jin slams his mouth shut, and looks guilty and stricken, like he's said too much. Kame can see the panic again, too. 

"And now?" 

"I don't know." Jin breaks eye contact, and looks up at the ceiling. "You're more beautiful like this," he says. Kame closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, Jin is gone.

 

-

 

Honoko is beaten for over an hour, in places no one can see, for the tear in the kimono sleeve, and the blood on the expensive silk. It hurts, but Honoko is still in the clearing. 

There's no such thing as love at first sight. There's no such thing as soul mates, either. Honoko knows there is only the here and the now.

But.

Something, in that clearing, in those moments out of time, has connected him to Jin in a way he's never been connected to anyone before. He'd been so disappointed that Jin wasn't anything Honoko had thought he would be, but Jin, it turns out, is so much more than that. Honoko knows nothing about him, and yet he feels like he knows everything, too. 

Maybe dreams reveal more of a person than realities, Honoko thinks, because maybe the spirit is more precious than any physical body. Either way, he feels like Jin knows him too. Honoko's hands trace the path of Jin's cloth across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He can still feel the phantom warmth of the tips of Jin's fingers on his skin.

Honoko wants to forget it all, because life was easier before he wondered what else could be, but in the end, his heart has spread out in his chest, unfurling like the tail of the mountain pheasants at the beginning of the winter snows.

When he falls asleep, a short period of time before he must wake up again and prepare to enter the night, he thinks of magpies, building a bridge across the night sky.

-

I have met my love.  
When I compare this present  
With feelings of the past,

My passion is now as if  
I have never loved before.

\--Fujiwara no Atsutada, 43

-

Even when Kame takes off his costume, he can still feel the heavy silk across his arms, and he thinks he walks a little straighter, a little more delicately. None of the guys have said anything yet, though, so Kame won't worry about it.

-

When Hiko is seven years old, he is given his first steel blade, a _mamorigatana._ A blade for protection more than offense. His father puts a heavy hand on his small shoulder, and tells him to use it well. 

Hiko practices a lot at first, swinging the sword around haphazardly as if he is dueling a brave enemy or running off the rescue the Lord of his province. These daydreams usually end in a sliced tree branch or flower stalk, and an irate mother, who finds all life precious, and fears the displeasure of the _kami_ who protect their training ground. 

Hiko is saving a much older and more famous samurai in his mind one day when he accidentally swings too high and ends up slicing his brother Tetsuya's gi, leaving a tiny cut on his arm. Hiko apologizes profusely, and Tetsuya just looks at it and shrugs, smiling gentle at Hiko and telling him to be more careful. 

Hiko has almost forgotten the incident when his father pulls him aside.

"This is only the first step, Hiko," his father says to him, seeming like a tall oak, arching over him and covering him in shadow. "Someday the peasants of our land will become the responsibility of you and your brothers. You must protect them should we be attacked. That is your duty to your Lord, and to our people." It's dark in his father's shadow, and Hiko can't see the sun at all, only his father's figure, outlined in golden light, his features impossible to make out. "That's why you can't wander off, Hiko, into your own head, as pleasant as it may seem. It's not always fun, our work, but that's life. You do what you have to do, because it must be done."

Hiko nods, and licks suddenly dry lips. He looks down at his hands, which have a sloppy grip on his _mamorigatana,_ and adjusts them quickly.

With each swing of his blade, he counts, and thinks of nothing but how the leather rubs terrible against the soft skin of his palm.

-

When Kame is seven years old, he gets his first real baseball bat.

With each swing of the bat, he builds new calluses on his small square hands. 

"I'm going to be a baseball player," he says, and his dad pats him on the shoulder. 

"You can be whatever you want to be, Kazuya," his dad says. 

It's not true, it's just what you're supposed to say to small children, before they know how the world works. 

-

Nakamaru shoves a sandwich under Kame's nose. "Eat it," he says. "You haven't eaten anything and lunch is almost over." 

Kame stares for a minute before he wraps a hand around the sandwich. He absently takes a bite. 

"What's it like?" Koki asks. 

"What? The sandwich?" Kame looks at him blankly. He's still caught up in movie-mode, thinking about the scenes they're filming tomorrow, and he's not quite keyed down enough to have normal conversation yet.

"Working with Jin again," Koki replies, and then he lifts an eyebrow. "What's he like on set nowadays?"

"He was really goofy even when the cameras weren't rolling, on _Yukan,_ " Junno pipes in. "Wasn't he goofy on _Gokusen,_ too, Kame? You used to hiss at him all the time to behave and he'd trot along after you with his tail between his legs, haha."

Kame remembers being so violent during _Gokusen_ filming. He doesn't remember Jin ever following behind him.

"He's...quiet," Kame says. "Very withdrawn, but incredibly professional." 

Tatsuya examines perfectly manicured nails. Kame doesn't know why he bothers, since they'll just get broken again the next time Tatsuya goes to the gym and punches the daylights out of a sandbag. Kame wonders whose face Tatsuya is imaging, but figures it probably changes by the day. _Most days it's probably Ryo's,_ he thinks. "Jin, professional? Alert the news, everyone, aliens have invaded and they must be body- snatchers."

Nakamaru frowns. "Hey, we were kids," Nakamaru says. "People grow up. Plus," he adds, "you don't really know what else is going on with people sometimes. Don't be judgmental unless you know the whole story."

Kame looks at Nakamaru contemplatively, while Tatsuya rolls his eyes. "Okay Nelson Mandela, let's all join hands and sing 'Kumbaya'. But it'll have to wait until after this interview."

Koki chuckles and stands up. "Unless Kame wants to call Jin a princess again under the guise of supporting him as a solo artist. I'm totally down with that."

Nakamaru sighs, and stretches. "Let's go," he says, and he rests his hand on Kame's shoulder. "Good luck," he mumbles, and Kame knows he means with Jin.

-

Jin, _Takamori,_ Honoko can tell, lives inside of his dreams. There's an emptiness in his eyes, now, that tells Honoko that Jin is elsewhere. The clouds in Jin's clearing go with him everywhere, it seems.

Dreams, to Honoko, are fleeting illusions that hurt far too much when you wake up. When he was a boy, he'd dreamed of conquering bandits, and of serving the Daimyo. Perhaps of falling in love with a graceful samurai's daughter, and raising a family with three strong samurai sons to carry on the traditions of his line.

Now, Honoko wakes up, and all he has are lacquer stained nails and a loneliness that only abates in those brief snatches of evening, when his eyes meet Jin's across a table in a teahouse, in a crowded room. For a moment, it feels like they are alone, but then the sounds of laughter and shouts and drunken revelry seep back in, and the distance between them becomes vast and insurmountable.

Honoko is choking, all wrapped up in silk and buried under heavy jewelry. The glamorous kimono feels like a leaden weight, and the expensive hair ornaments nothing but chains.

"Honoko." Jin's lips form the shape of his name across the table, and Kazuya can only look at him sadly. 

_'I'm not for you,'_ Honoko wants to whisper back. _'And you're not for me.'_ But instead, Honoko avoids Jin's seeking eyes, turning a false smile on the man to his right.

He's turning to ash under Jin's hot gaze, but it doesn't do to dwell in dreams. There is only the world, and the way things must be, predetermined by fate and reinforced by tradition. 

Honoko is disgraced, and it is not for him to grasp happiness with both hands. Honoko can only watch happiness from a distance, like he watches the departing American ships from the harbor.

But when Honoko falls into a deep slumber, Jin's chocolate eyes haunt him, looking through him and seeing all the way inside to the desire that lurks there like a caged dragon spitting and clawing at the walls of his heart.

-

The feeling doesn't stop when the camera stop filming, for Kame. 

It's weird.

This year, at _Tanabata,_ it rains again.

-

When sixteen year-old Jin dumps the huge pile of comics into Kame's lap, Kame gapes up at him in shock. "What's all this?" 

"It's ‘One Piece’," Jin replies, and then he grins fondly at the well-worn volumes. "It's a prerequisite to being my friend. Don't worry, you'll love it."

Kame wants to tell him that between baseball and Johnny's, he barely has any time to sleep, but Jin is looking at him so hopefully that Kame just nods. 

He stays up the whole night reading the comics, and when he's read through them all, he's got huge circles under his eyes and the sun is peaking through his closed curtains.

Jin's right though, he loves it.

-

The depths of the hearts  
Of humankind cannot be known.  
But in my birthplace

The plum blossoms smell the same  
As in the years gone by.

Ki no Tsurayuki, 35

-

Jin sits next to Kame while Kame twirls the fan in his hands, practicing his catching. Jin has two rice balls in his left hand, and he intercepts the fan, catching it with his right just before Kame can snag it out of the air. He places the fan on his lap, and roughly grabs Kame's hand, putting a rice ball into it before he lets go. "Eat." Jin is concentratedly not looking at him, and he takes a big bite out of his own rice ball. "Maru says you've been forgetting to eat again."

Kame starts. "You talk to Nakamaru?"

Jin looks at him out of the side of his eye. "Yeah, pretty often," Jin answers, and Kame feels strange. 

"But..." _Why won't you talk to me,_ he wants to ask, but Jin hasn't talked to him for years, really, and by the time Jin started making feeble overtures Kame was too walled off to accept them. "Okay," he says instead, and takes a bite of the rice. It's warm, and sweet. Inside it's tuna, which is Kame's favorite. Kame is a little touched Jin remembered, because he knows it's not an accident. Jin hates tuna. 

"You have to eat," Jin says quietly. "Otherwise you can't do your best."

Kame snorts. "The media would probably be relieved I was losing some weight," Kame says, but there's no feeling behind it, no bitterness. It's his job to be an idol, there's no room for bitterness about the job requirements. Kame's not _hurt_ when they call him fat on the web blogs, it just makes him think he needs to work harder.

"Don't be ridiculous," Jin says gruffly. "There's nothing wrong with you. You're not supposed to look like you did when you were eighteen. You're a grown man now." Jin reaches his hand up and gingerly scratches his own scalp, so he won't mess up his hair, which is elegantly arranged in a high sleek ponytail.

When they were younger, Jin used to scratch with wild abandon, dislodging and ruining the stylists' hard work. Kame almost doesn't recognize Jin now, with his serious face and his delicate fingers, so different from the fumbling puppy Kame grew up with.

Kame takes another bite of rice. "You should do what you want, Kame. Stop worrying so much about what you're supposed to do."

"That doesn't work out for everyone else like it did for you, Jin."

Jin looks at Kame then, for the first time since he sat down. "I worry about other people's expectations all the time, Kame. It's just not the same people as the ones you're worried about. People you _don't know_." Jin stands up, and slides his hands into the big pocket on the front of his oversized sweatshirt. "I'm going to get into costume," he says. "Eat the whole thing or Maru will have my nuts."

The rice tastes really good. Kame grabs another on the way into make-up. 

-

Nakamaru is standing next to him as they watch Koki taunt Tatsuya in front of the camera, the photographer laughing and clicking away as Tatsuya makes scandalized pouting faces, his wide lips tilting in the mildest of grins. Nakamaru is watching with amusement. 

"You still talk to Jin," Kame says, and Nakamaru straightens his back. 

"That depends. Did he feed you?"

Kame smiles. "Almost shoved a rice ball down my throat," Kame replies, and Nakamaru looks pleased.

"Good, I worry about you, you workaholic. It's like you forget you're a person and not an entertainment robot sometimes."

"Why do you talk to Jin?" Kame asks. "Why didn't I know that you talk to Jin?"

"It's not a secret," Nakamaru says. "I just...don't go out of my way to bring it up." 

"Ah," Kame says, and thinks about how Nakamaru was the only person Jin seemed to talk to, even when they were still all a group.

"Jin's my friend," Nakamaru says, a little defensively. "He's a good guy."

"I know," Kame says, and Nakamaru relaxes. 

"He's just...confused a lot," Nakamaru says, and then it's his turn to take photos with Junno. "But we still go out for drinks all the time."

Kame wonders how other people have time for lives. Kame never has time to be Kame. He only has time to be Honoko, and KAT-TUN's K, and now KAT-TUN's A, too. Kame only exists when he closes his eyes, but he's usually too tired to dream, so maybe Kame doesn't exist at all.

-

Kame used to have another role, as half of Akakame. That was his favorite role to play.

Kame still absently goes to twist the pinky ring on his finger sometimes, before he remembers it's been years since it was okay to wear it.

-

"Let's rehearse the scene," says a voice from behind him, and Kame jumps, dropping his script in surprise. "Sorry," Jin says, a little sheepishly, and it's an expression Kame hasn't seen in a long time. "I didn't mean to scare you." Jin is draped along the doorframe like a vine, long arms and legs aligned with the short door. Filming from trailers isn't something Kame is used to, but it's apparently normal, the way Jin leans so familiarly against it. "Are you in the mood to do it now?"

"Alright," Kame says. 

Jin scowls at him a little. "Do you want to, or not?" Jin says huffily, and Kame is confused.

"I just said 'Alright,'" Kame answers, and for some reason this makes Jin scowl even more. 

"It's like 'Okay,' and 'Alright,' are the only two words you know, Kamenashi. That's weird. What do you want to do?"

"I don't want anything," Kame says, "but we do need to rehearse this scene. We're filming it in just a few days."

Jin sighs. "Maybe later," he says, and then Kame is alone again.

-

When Kame plays Shuuji, he develops an intense need for routine. He has to wake up a certain way, get ready a certain way, live a certain way. 

It's hard on the guys sometimes, but they don't realize it's Shuuji, and not Kame, who picks up their clothes and hangs them up or puts them away on tour, or Shuuji cooking breakfast because he can't stand the way they use so many dishes to cook rice and a couple eggs.

It's also the time in his life where he makes the most friends, because Shuuji is the popular type. 

Kame is always the character he plays, at least until it's over and he's left with nothing until the next role falls into his lap.

-

There are two memories of Jin that Kame cherishes.

The first memory is of the first time they met. Kame is sitting on the floor, knees curled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, tugging them closer. Kame is watching the other boys play and laugh and he feels woefully out of place. He pulls his baseball cap further down over his eyes, so that no one can see his miserable expression.

He doesn't really know why he's here, only that his dad had dropped him off after baseball practice and said "Do your best," and now he's here, and he already knows it's not where he belongs. It's an audition for some kind of idol factory, and Kame is far from being idol material. His face is weird, and he's short and stubby and the only thing he likes is baseball.

All of a sudden, there's a warm arm pressed against his own, and he looks up, startled, into the warmest eyes he's ever seen. "Why are you sitting here by yourself?" the boy asks, and his voice is too high and perky, like he's had too much sugar.

"I don't belong here," Kame answers, and the boy laughs. 

"None of us do, not really. You don't just automatically belong places, Mr. Baseball."

"What do you mean?" Kame asks, feeling his arms loosen their death grip on his knees. 

"I mean, you're not going to make any friends sitting over here in the corner. How is anyone going to get to know you if you hide under a hat?" The boy giggles. "What's your name, Baseball?"

"Kame," he answers. "Well, Kamenashi Kazuya. But my...my friends call me Kame."

The boy has a smile that lights up his whole face. He's awkward and long limbed and floppy and wonderful, and Kame wants to be his friend so badly. "I'm Jin," he replies, and then he bounds up, pulling Kame with him. "Let me introduce you to some of the others. Some of us are bound to make it through."

"But what if they don't like me?" Kame whispers, the discomfort suddenly sliding back into place like it never left. He feels anxious and scared, and Jin smiles at him softly and grabs his wrist. 

"Doesn't matter. I like you," Jin says, and then he pulls at Kame's wrist, and Kame finds himself standing up. "Just be yourself."

"Myself isn't very cool," Kame mutters, and Jin shoots him a look. 

"Do you really want to sit by yourself in the corner hiding under your hat for the rest of the day?" Jin asks, and Kame hesitantly shakes his head in the negative. "Then what do you want, Kame?" Jin asks, and Kame rubs his nose with the flat of his palm.

"I want to be your friend," he blurts out, and if Kame thought Jin's smile was bright before, now it is like the sun, warming Kame all the way down to his bones.

"I want that too," Jin says, and Kame wonders why he feels so full of light.

-

"Jin," Kame asks, when Jin is standing nearby, waiting to film. "Do you still read ‘One Piece’?" 

Jin looks over at Kame, giving him a brief cursory curious look. "Not since I started doing Hollywood movies. It was hard to keep up."

"Oh," Kame says, and he wonders if he and Jin have anything in common at all anymore.

"It was so good, though," Jin says, kind of wistfully, and Kame feels a tiny twist in his heart.

-

Kame doesn't have very many ambitions in life, or things he does for himself. It's why he identifies so much with Honoko, after all, because he's learned better than to dream.

He used to dream about Jin a lot, when he was younger. About Jin's smiling face sitting across from him, both of them covered in sand and sea water, the Okinawa waves crashing against the shore as they laugh and build sandcastles.

Then Kame woke up and Jin was gone.

Kame likes to think he learned his lesson. Dreams are for other people. Kame just has reality, cold and empty and dark.

It's surprisingly easy to sink into being Honoko. Honoko's world is just as dim as Kame's, and it hurts less when he's pretending to be someone else. It's harder to slip out of being Honoko, and Kame finds himself looking at Jin sometimes as if he is actually Honoko. At those times, he sees a piece of Jin's hair slip loose from his ponytail, and he has to fight the urge to tuck it behind his ear.

-

When Kame plays Kyohei in _Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge_ , he wants to knock taxi drivers out all the time, because Kyohei is so angry, and Kame can't always pull the character back.

Everyone is relieved when Kame suddenly stops feeling violent and aggressive, and they don't realize it's Kyohei, not Kame, that they should have been nervous about.

-

"Great job today, guys," the director says, and he looks absolutely delighted. Kame feels rung out. _This role is perfect,_ he thinks, and so far he and Jin have amazing chemistry together when the camera is rolling. 

And Kame's mouth is being unpredictable today. "Let's get dinner," he says to Jin, before he can even think about it. 

Jin looks up at him in surprise. "What?"

"I want to eat dinner with you," Kame says, and something in his word choice makes Jin freeze, and stare long and hard at Kame, like Kame is a particularly difficult puzzle, and perhaps Jin thinks a few pieces might be missing. But Kame does want to eat dinner with Jin, really wants to. 

_He wants to._

Jin smiles, and it's tiny but it makes his face look softer, younger. "It's four am, you idiot," Jin replies, and Kame draws back, feels himself shriveling up like he did around strangers when he was a kid, or like he did when no one picked him for baseball before they knew he was an awesome pitcher. But then Jin's smile gets a little bigger. "We'll just have to get breakfast," Jin says, and Kame feels his own smile tentatively creep onto his face.

Jin fills breakfast conversation with stories about Yamashita and Shirota and their drunken antics, and Kame finds himself laughing in that special, abandoned way he always laughs with Jin. Jin looks at him, every so often with this kind of bemused amazement, and Kame doesn't know what it all means but he feels like something inside of him is healing.

Kame doesn't usually make overtures, doesn't really know how, but somehow knowing that Honoko and Takamori are already friends makes it easy for Kame to play like this isn't something new and difficult.

The next day, Kame drops two years' worth of ‘One Piece’ comics onto Jin's lap, and offers him a small grin. "One Piece," he says, and Jin's eyes are round like five-yen coins. "A prerequisite to being my friend." Kame is nervous, nervous like he hasn't been in years, because he hasn't let himself be. Honoko wants to reach out and touch Jin's raised eyebrows, but Kame doesn't let the character have its way. "Don't worry, you'll like it."

"Idiot," Jin chokes out. "Like I have time to read all of this," he mumbles, and Kame thinks he might be trying not to cry. 

The next day Jin comes in looking disheveled and sleepy, and the make-up artists all chide him like mother hens, pampering him once he gives them a drowsy, charming smile. 

"Princess Vivi, huh?" he whispers to Kame, when the director yells cut. 

There's a warm glow in Kame's chest, and it's easy for Honoko to meet Takamori's eyes across the tea room after that.

-

Kame's second cherished memory of Jin isn't really of a special moment, or a first, or a last. He can't really even remember exactly when it happened. What he can remember is the way the snow bleeds through his coat and sweater, chilling his spine, and the way Jin playfully straddles him and sprinkles snowflakes on his face.

Kame frowns up at Jin, and as he looks up he can see the snow on his own eyelashes, heavy and wet. "It's _cold_ , Jin," he says, and Jin chuckles.

"Duh," Jin says, and Jin's face is ruddy from the harsh winter wind, and his eyes are sparkling brighter than the sunlight on the snow. "It's snowing, and it's winter."

"Get off of me, Jin. You're way too fat for this."

Jin retaliates with a big clump of snow on Kame's neck, which makes Kame yelp and Jin laugh and lean forward, blowing warm air onto the wet skin. Kame shivers at the weird sensation, and Jin laces their fingers together, barely managing because of their thick gloves. 

Jin is surprisingly still, and his breath sort of stutters as he breathes in, pressing his nose to Kame's neck. Kame can't feel the snow anymore, only the press of Jin warm against him. "Kame, do you ever wish you could stop time?"

Kame doesn't move. "What?" 

"Stop time," Jin whispers, and now his mouth is near Kame's ear, and Kame feels like he's floating for some reason, and a little like it's summer even though moments ago he'd been complaining about winter's chill. "Sometimes I feel like a moment is so perfect it's just like a dream," Jin says. "A dream I want to just stay in, so I can forget that later, the real world is going to come rushing back, and I'll have to pretend again. Don’t you ever wish you could just stay in a moment?"

Kame does. But he knows that's not how it works. "Life isn't dreams, Jin. It's easy to get caught up in things you wish, and then it hurts even more when it turns out not to be. I try not to hope for things like that."

Jin lifts himself up so he can look Kame in the eyes. "That's a sad way to live, with no hopes," Jin informs him, his face serious. Kame smiles at him gently, and Jin's eyes widen and he swallows. Jin rolls off Kame, landing beside him in the snow with a thump. "Ne, Kame, what do you want? Is there anything...you really, really want?" Jin's voice is uncharacteristically quiet, and it sounds strange, and when he looks over at Jin, Jin has a strange expression on his face, too.

"Right now? Some hot chocolate." Jin laughs, and heaves himself off the ground. Kame looks up at Jin, who looms above him covered in snow, and thinks he might be glowing.

"It _is_ pretty cold, huh?" Jin has snowflakes in his hair, and he's still all red and his lips are chapped. Kame thinks he looks...Kame's heart is beating faster, and he doesn't really know why. "Well that's one dream I can make come true," Jin says, and he wraps his fingers around Kame's wrist, just like he did the first time they met. Kame can feel the heat of his fingers against the cold sliver of exposed skin, and it's nice.

When Kame thinks back to that day, wrapped up in a quilt in Jin's bedroom watching TV while Jin lies next to him rolled up in another quilt, pressing his cold toes against Kame's ankle, drinking hot chocolate and laughing, laughing so much...Well, Kame wishes he could have stopped time right then.

Because somehow, later, he lost Jin, and he doesn't know why, but he does know that whenever it snows, he always rushes inside, because the snow makes him feel painfully lonely.

-

Kame drank over ten bottles of wine a week while he was filming _Kami no Shizuku_.

Kame hates wine, but for a while, he enjoyed tasting the different ones, and inhaling their bouquets. Unexpectedly, for that short period of time, the vino tasted sweet on his lips.

The bottle of wine Koki gives him two weeks after filming on the drama ends still sits unopened in his cabinet, behind two ancient bags of shrimp crackers and a container of protein shake mix.

-

"Do you still have the same cell phone number?" Jin asks him, and Kame looks up in surprise. 

"No, I had to change it because it leaked," Kame replies, and Jin sighs with relief. 

"Oh, okay," Jin says, and Kame lifts an eyebrow. "Don't look at me like that," Jin mumbles. "It makes me feel inexplicably guilty."

Kame laughs. "Inexplicably? Or did you do something you need to feel guilty about?" Kame asks, mostly teasing. He likes that he can tease Jin. It makes it seem like someday the bridge between them can be rebuilt.

Jin looks at him shiftily, and dodges the question. "What's your new number?" 

Kame takes his phone and types it in. He saves it with an emoticon next to it.

Jin takes it from him and laughs. "It's the same one," Jin says, and locks the screen of the phone, slipping it back into his pocket. "The _emoji_ , I mean. It's the same one you used when we were kids. I thought it was crazy when you first did it, because what teenage boy does that?" 

Jin looks away, and out into the distance at something Kame can't see. "It's just me," Kame says, feeling uncomfortable.

"Yeah," Jin says. "It's just you." He says it with a big smile, and so Kame thinks being just himself is good enough today.

-

Though we are parted,  
If on Mount Inaba's peak  
I should hear the sound

Of the pine trees growing there,  
I'll come back again to you.

\-- Ariwara no Yukihira, 16

-

"Kamenashi, can you go get Akanishi?" the director asks, and Kame nods. "Thanks. Try and catch him before he changes clothes, I want to film him one more time doing that last scene. I don't like the camera angle."

Kame knocks on Jin's dressing room door, and hears a muffled response he assumes is permission to enter. 

Jin is sitting on the counter, texting someone on his phone. He's still wearing his hakama, but his gi hangs open on his chest, revealing smooth, tanned skin that looks butter soft to Kame.

Kame shifts nervously, feeling the weight of the kimono heavily on his shoulders. He notices something on Jin's chest.

"What's this?" Kame says, and he forgets that he's not Honoko, and that Jin isn't Takamori, and he reaches out and runs his index finger along the small thin scar on Jin's left side. Jin's abdominal muscles tighten immediately, and Kame jerks his hand back quickly, remembering himself. 

Jin's quivering a little, and his voice, when he answers, is shaking as well. "From _Ronin_ ," he says. "During training. A sword slip."

"Oh," Kame says, and then he clears his throat. "Director wants you."

Jin slides down off the counter and gathers his gi closed, fastening the inner laces and then tying the outer one. "He probably wants to re-film that last scene," Jin says, and it sounds like the icebreaker it is. 

"From another angle," Kame replies, and Jin nods. 

"Alright then," Jin says, as he slips out the door. "See you, Kame."

Kame looks down at his right hand, remembering the smooth feel of Jin's warm flesh beneath it.

The movie is getting to him, is all. He needs to be more careful to not be Honoko when he isn't filming, because the feelings of the character, as Kame sees them, are overlapping onto his own feelings, making it hard for him to judge his actions. Kame remembers when he filmed _One Pound_ , how hard he found it to stop eating and eating and eating, and he doesn't want it to be like that, only with touching Jin.

It's just the movie. He can control it.

-

Kame recalls a day later in his time as a junior, when Johnny called him into his office and told him it was time to quit serious baseball.

Kame knows that it was bound to happen eventually, but it still hurts. Jin rages about it for hours, until Kame calmly tells him it's okay.

"But you love baseball!" Jin shouts. "It's like, the only thing you care about, and now he's taking that away, too."

"I'm an idol now, Jin. This is my job. I signed that contract, and I chose this life. He's not taking it away; I'm giving it up. I’ll still get to play at Johnny’s tournaments, and…"

"Choosing to be an idol doesn't mean forgetting you're a _person,_ too." Jin sounds stubborn, and serious. "You're a person, first."

"No, I'm an idol before everything. This is my job," Kame says, and Jin doesn't surrender.

"Doesn't it _kill you_ not to do anything you want? Don't you want anything for _yourself_ anymore?"

"Not really," Kame says, and later that night Kame puts his favorite pitching glove in a box underneath his bed. 

When Jin goes to Los Angeles, a while later, the only thing he tells Kame is that he's a person _before_ he's an idol, and he can't just push his dreams into the bottom of his heart, or the bottom of a box, and lock them away like Kame can. It's probably the last real conversation they have, until the movie happens.

Kame thinks it's hard for something to kill you when you're already mostly dead inside, and doesn't think about baseball or Jin at all.

-

The year Jin leaves for Los Angeles, it rains so hard on _Tanabata_ that there’s minor flooding in Yokohama, swamping the harbors and filling the streets.

 

 

 

-

Kame is really, really tired. He knows he can't be, right now, because there's a lot to film, and most of it is very emotional, with close angle camera shots and lots of interaction between Kame and two of the women who play backstabbing interlopers. It's an important subplot, and even if it wasn't, Kame wants to bring his A game to every scene of this movie, because it deserves his best.

Still, he's a little cranky, and fussy, and Jin looks hungover, which makes him angry.

"Have you been drinking again?" Kame says nastily. "Did they get your picture for ‘Friday’?" He regrets it as soon as he says it, and winces. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't take my mood out on you," Kame apologizes. 

"You shouldn't," Jin agrees. "But it's such a relief to see you in a bad mood I'll forgive you this time."

"That's a terrible thing to say," Kame mutters, and Jin looks at him surprised.

"Oh, not that you being upset is good, but it is, for me." Jin scratches his head, and takes off his sunglasses, and maybe he's not hungover at all. "I'm putting my foot in my mouth, sorry. I was up late recording for my new album last night, so my mouth is going faster than my brain."

"That's not hard to do," Kame grunts, and Jin raises an eyebrow. "Go faster than your brain, I mean."

Jin laughs, and Kame is still put out. "Okay, okay, what I'm trying to say is, you have lots of emotions all the time, but they're all fake. I never know if you're laughing for real, or if you're laughing because you're supposed to be." Jin puts both hands in his pockets, and shrugs. "But today, I'm pretty sure you just feel rotten. And I'm sorry, but it's a relief that you still feel things at all." Jin gives him the side-eye. "I wondered, for a while, if you'd managed to bury it all somewhere deep inside you where no one could find it."

Kame just gapes at Jin, who chuckles with embarrassment. "Sorry, didn't mean to give a speech, or anything."

The director calls for Jin, who walks over to him. The two bend their heads over a heavily marked sheet of paper, and strands of long black hair fall into Jin's face and he blows them away, laughing and joking with the director. 

Seeing easygoing Jin again feels like déjà-vu, and Kame wonders what has changed. 

Later, Jin leaves Kame a small square of his favorite chocolate, and a little note on his dressing room table in his trailer. 'Feel better soon, Baseball,' the note says, and there's a little picture of a sun with sunglasses scribbled next to the words. Jin has terrible handwriting, and the kanji might be wrong.

It makes Kame smile, tentatively.

-

When Kame is starring in _Yuuki,_ he feels sick all the time. He throws up after every meal, because food seems to sit sour in his stomach, and he loses a ton of weight. He can't help it-- being sick all day for filming makes it easy to be sick at night. Kame has a hard time separating. 

Jin frets over him but tries not to hover, but Kame feels optimistic. Maybe it's because Yuuki Sanda is so strong that Kame feels strong just pretending to be him.

Kame doesn't try and explain to Jin how he becomes characters, because Jin doesn't ask. Just holds Kame closer to him by the shoulders, and tries to keep him warm, and holds his hair back while he throws up into the toilet.

-

Jin is covered in sweat when Kame finds him. _"Oh My God_ , Kame, it was awful," Jin says, when he sees Kame. 

"I've been looking everywhere for you," Kame tells him. "I wanted to go over this scene before we hit film." Kame self-consciously scratches his neck when Jin pulls off his sweat-soaked shirt to reveal his toned stomach. "What was awful?"

"I've been in the _burning sun_ for the past seven hours, rehearsing the massive battle scene we're filming Friday," Jin moans, and he turns around and he is a bit burned, on the back of his neck. "It's not even summer anymore." He flops down on the couch, his plaid shorts contrasting horrifically with the tan sofa in the lounge, and groans into the cushion, which he's mashed his face into melodramatically. "Everything hurts."

Kame sighs, and on instinct he goes and squeezes onto the edge of the couch, sitting sideways and pressing the flats of his palms into Jin's shoulders. "You forgot to put sunscreen on your neck again. Don't you remember that time in Osaka?"

"Shut up, my hair covered it." Jin moans again, but this time from pleasure. "Kame, you are still the best at this," Jin says, as Kame begins a gentle massage of Jin's tense shoulders.

"It's not about aesthetics, Jin!" Kame says, but there's no heat in his voice. "You'll get skin damage, or skin cancer, or something."

"Don't harp, Kame," Jin replies, and there's no heat in his voice either.

It's a comfortable afternoon.

-  
*  
Jin kisses Honoko, _or is it Kame?_ like Honoko is water and he hasn't drunk for days. His lips flutter softly against Honoko's at first, but soon, he is pulling Honoko so tight against him that it hurts, and Honoko can do nothing but open under the assault of Jin's desperate tongue and the unforgiving crush of parched lips.

Jin tastes of sake and adrenaline, and of battle and blood, too. Honoko knows Jin has survived yet another skirmish today, that he has made it back alive to circle around the outskirts of Honoko's world like a steady satellite.

"Come home with me," Jin whispers to Honoko, and Honoko knows it's wrong but he can't say no.

They share their second kiss in the dark shadows of a Gion alley as the early rays of morning light sink into the horizon, turning the sky the same flushed pink as Jin's bruised and swollen mouth. Jin doesn't let Honoko go even once, and his hands are shaking uncontrollably. Honoko doesn't know how to help him except that he should kiss him back, and Honoko is just as desperate as Jin to reassure himself that the clumsy man, not a warrior by any stretch of the imagination, has made it back to him alive.

Honoko doesn't believe in love. Love is like dreams: it serves as a place to hide from the harsh realities of the world. When Honoko wakes tomorrow, he'll be beaten for staying out too late, and then he'll sleep fitfully until he has to awaken and return to his hell of smoke and sake, and Jin will still go out and risk his life for a cause he barely believes in, and take lives it kills a part of him inside to take, still a fragile artist stuffed into the role of samurai by the hands of rigid tradition. Honoko will still be stuck waiting in teahouses, telling jokes and playing instruments, while his betraying eyes scan the comings and goings on the street outside, looking for any trace of Jin, praying that he's survived.

But as Jin's tongue wraps around his, licking at every corner of his mouth and making Honoko feel like he's going to unravel in Jin's arms, Honoko thinks that just for now, just for tonight, he can let this be love.

Jin's eager lips kiss every part of Honoko's face, before descending to his neck, nibbling and licking as the soft skin there. It draws a gasp from Honoko, whose hands clutch at Jin's shoulder as his knees threaten to buckle. "Jin," he murmurs, but no, he should be saying _'Takamori,'_ and Jin's eyes are hazy when they meet Kame-- _Honoko's._ "Tomorrow..."

"Until then," Jin says, licking a stripe across Honoko's collarbone that adds to the increasing burn in Honoko's lower belly. "Until then, let's just be."

He tugs at Honoko's yukata, pulling it down and baring his shoulder. He presses his lips to the exposed skin, before he continues to tug. The yukata falls down Honoko's arms, and pools at his waist. Jin's eyes devour his upper body, before he runs his calloused warm hands down Honoko's muscular arms. "You're beautiful, like this," Jin says.

Honoko feels beautiful. He comes undone in Jin's arms, hot touches and burning open-mouthed kisses leaving him panting and aching until everything spirals into oblivion.

*

Kame wakes up in a sweat, hair plastered to his neck and hands fisted in his sheets.

He can still feel the tingling trails of fire, where Jin trailed his fingertips across Kame's skin, and he feels feverish with want even though here, in his apartment, he's alone.

Kame's always been exceptionally good at getting into character, and it always consumes him like this.

He feels strangely alive, though.

-

Kame is filming alone today, which is good, because he keeps seeing flashes of his dream whenever he blinks or closes his eyes.

When Jin shows up on set in the afternoon, sunburnt and flush, Kame can't stop himself from reaching out and touching Jin's face. As soon as he feels his fingertips make contact, he draws back.

Jin looks anxious, and his eyes are searching. Kame doesn't have any answers. Neither does Honoko.

Jin doesn't seem to mind, and his fingers brush across Kame's kimono, straightening the fabric, and then Kame is called back to the scene. 

The performance is better the second time, when he can feel Jin's eyes on him. Kame finds is easier to long for him, for _Honoko_ to long for him, when there's the image of his questioning eyes seared into Kame's mind.

-

“It’s raining,” Jin says, and Kame shrugs. “Lucky me! No battle training today!” Then he rests his chin on his folded arms, looking out the window. “Still, it’s sad.”

“Why?” Kame asks, staring at Jin contemplatively. Jin’s hair falls softly around his face, and his eyes are unfocused. 

“Today is _Tanabata._ Don’t you feel bad for Orihime and Hikoboshi? The magpies will never come outside today.” Jin sighs, and his shorter hair in the front blows up with the force of his expelled breath.

"Well, Hikoboshi needs to watch his herd, and Orihime needs to weave her cloth. It's not as if they don't have anything," Kame says, and Jin looks at him sadly. 

"They don't have each other, though," Jin says, and his eyes are soft and distant. "It's awful lonely, to be in love with someone you can't touch."

Kame has stopped feeling bad about it, because it’s the seventh year in a row.

-

The TV is playing in the dressing room where Kame and Tatsuya are having their hair done. The stylist is using huge rollers for who knows what reason, so Kame figures he and Tatsuya will have matching poodle perms or something awful like that. It doesn't matter, Kame figures, because it's just hair.

He hears Jin's name and shifts his gaze up to the TV. Sure enough, it's Jin, being interviewed in English. There are subtitles, and Jin looks confident and comfortable talking with the interviewer, a pretty brunette with big brown eyes. "So, Jin," she says, and Kame winces at the familiarity. He can never get used to the way people's names are thrown about without permission in Western culture. "Do you have a girlfriend? America wants to know."

Jin laughs, and shakes his long mane back behind his shoulders. He can't cut it now, because unlike Kame, he's using his real hair for the film. It's longer than Kame has ever seen it, but somehow it suits him. "Jin looks like a girl," Tatsuya says, and Kame glares mildly at him. Tatsuya shrugs in some nonchalant manner that he regularly passes off as an apology.

"No," Jin says. "I'm not really interested in one, to be honest."

"Aww," the interview says, feigning a pout and flirting outrageously. "That's too bad. Girl's hearts are breaking across the country."

"You're exaggerating," Jin says, and he looks a little genuinely embarrassed. Kame feels relieved, for some reason, that Jin still gets embarrassed over stuff like this, just like he used to. 

"Then my next question is: Have you ever been in love?"

Now Jin smiles a strange secretive smile, and winks at the interviewer. "Only once," Jin says, and Kame finds himself inexplicably leaning forward to listen more carefully. "It was a one-sided love."

The interviewer is leaning forward too. Kame can see right down her shirt, but Jin isn't even looking. "Did you ever tell?"

"No," Jin says, and now his smile looks a little sad. "I knew it wasn't meant to be, because of the showbiz thing, you know? This person really valued things I would have thrown away for them."

"That's too bad," the interviewer says. "The lucky girl is probably shaking her head at the--" the TV shuts off, and Tatsuya rolls his eyes, the control lightly held in his right hand. 

"What an unmitigated sap," Tatsuya says, looking uncomfortable. "Jin's one of those disgusting romantic types, no doubt." Tatsuya looks like the mere idea of it makes him want to skip lunch and spend the time punching puppies.

Kame wants to turn the TV back on, and keep watching the play of different emotions in Jin's eyes. 

The sparkle is familiar. Jin is probably beautiful in love, Kame thinks, because even when he and Kame were best friends, Jin glowed with emotion.

But the control stays in Tatsuya's hand, and Kame closes his eyes.

-

"Please?" Jin says, resting his head on Kame's shoulder and looking at him teasingly. "I really want to eat cake."

"It's not your birthday, Jin," Kame says, but he can feel himself giving in. "It's late fall."

"You didn't celebrate my birthday with me," Jin says.

"You weren't talking to me," Kame says, already fingering his wallet. Jin hears his victory, the jingling of car keys, and cheers. He scrambles to lace up his big yellow sneakers.

"You know how sad it is that you still wear the _same sneakers_ you wore when you were twenty?" Kame says, and Jin looks unrepentant about his fashion delinquency.

"It just means they were worth all the money I spent on them, then, doesn't?" he retorts, and then he lifts a judgmental eyebrow. "If all of us bought new jeans every week at outrageous prices, then you wouldn't be as special, right?"

"You're a hobo," Kame tells Jin flatly, and Jin shrugs, his large sweater barely moving because it doesn't even touch Jin's skin. "It's shameful, given your career."

"Whatever, I don't care that much about clothes," Jin replies. "What I care about...is cake. Can we eat cake?"

"Yes, we can eat cake," Kame says.

They go to this little place in Harajuku, about a four-meter walk from the station. It's between two weird Gothic Lolita clothing shops, and no one who shops in Harajuku is really going to be a big Johnny fan, so it feels safe. When they were younger, they would take the train there on the way home, even though it was drastically out of the way, and it always made them late to arrive home. It was their secret, that place, and it always made Kame feel closer to Jin knowing that it was their cake shop.

"I never told anyone about this place," Jin tells him, like he can read Kame's mind. "I haven't been here in a while."

"I haven't been here since..." Jin will know, so Kame doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't eat sweets that often anymore anyway, because they make him round-faced, and then he gets bad press in the papers and online and his manager gets angry.

"Cake's the same, still," Jin quietly says.

Jin gets icing all over his face somehow, and Kame has this inexplicable urge to reach across the table and wipe it off with his thumb, so he does.

Jin freezes, staring at him with a half chewed bite of cake in his mouth. He looks cute. Kame brings his thumb to his mouth, and licks the icing off, Jin's eyes trailing his thumb with a strange expression on his face. The icing is sweet. "It's good cake," Kame says, and Jin gulps.

"It always has been." Jin's voice is faint. "Remember?"

"Yeah," Kame answers, and he can't get the sweet taste out of his mouth, no matter how many times he swallows. The lemon icing lingers on his tongue, even hours later.

-

Jin's brother buys him a stuffed turtle for his birthday.

Reio looks shocked when Jin throws the turtle back in his face, running upstairs and locking himself in his room. Kame puts an arm around him as he tries not to sniffle. "I don't get it," Reio says. "Jin really likes turtles."

"Does he?" Kame asks, and Reio nods. 

"He's got three or four of them, already. Maybe he thinks I'm trying to tease him about toys?"

Kame nods safely. "I'm sure that's it," Kame tells him, then stands up. "I'm going to go investigate the matter."

Reio grins, and so does Jin's mother. "Good luck, Kame. Jin's a handful when he's in a rage."

"I know," Kame says, with a smile. "But he's still just Jin."

Kame sits outside the door with his back against it, not bothering to try and get Jin to let him in. "You made Reio cry," Kame says just loud enough for Jin to hear. "He was just trying to be nice. He's only eleven, Jin."

"I know," Jin mumbles, and Kame hears him rest his own back against the door, so it's like they're resting against each other. "It's just embarrassing because you're here."

"Because I'm here?" Kame says, before he realizes. Turtles. Jin collects Kame. 

"I just want you around all the time. But things are too busy for that," Jin says, and Kame can barely hear him through the door.

"I'm glad you want me around so much," Kame says, and it's true. He feels all choked up that Jin's happy to have him around; that he's not just putting up with him. "I want you around all the time too."

Jin opens the door, and Kame crawls into the room, and sits next to Jin, leaning against the wall. "I think there's something wrong with me," Jin tells Kame.

"What?" Kame asks, and Jin leans his head on Kame's shoulder, and rests his head in Kame's neck. 

"Pi keeps talking about girls, and sex." Jin looks torn, and confused. "But I..."

"What?" Kame asks again. He doesn't see how that means there's something wrong with Jin, really.

"But I want..." He looks at Kame, and suddenly he's insanely close. Kame can feel the tickle of Jin’s breath on his cheeks, and in his eyelashes. It feels… Then Jin seems to gather himself, and pull away. "I don't want to talk about it, after all," Jin says after a minute, as Kame starts to stroke his hair. "Some other time," he adds, and Kame doesn't think there's anything wrong with Jin.

Jin is pretty close to Kame's own vision of perfect.

-

From Tsukuba's peak  
Falling waters have become  
Mina's still, full flow:

So my love has grown to be  
Like the river's quiet deeps.

\-- Emperor Yozei, 13 

-

"Kame!" Yamashita says, and Kame looks over to see him jogging lightly over to where Kame is waiting for the elevator. "Off to rehearsal? Heard you guys have a new single."

"Yamashita," Kame says, and Yamashita frowns. "We actually ARE getting our new single today," Kame informs him.

"God, you act like we're strangers," Yamashita says. "Call me Yamapi like everyone else, you weirdo. Or Akira." He grins then. "We've been friends for a while now, you know?"

Kame smiles at him, for real now. "I know," he says. "It's just hard for me to switch back and forth."

"You're such a nutcase," Yamashita...Yamapi says. "How's working with Jin? He's never home...always on set, or hanging out watching you film. How'd you guys manage to become friends again?"

Kame shrugs. "I don't know," he answers, and Yamapi grins as the elevator opens. They both walk in, and Yamashita presses six and Kame presses nine.

"Well, it's nice to see Jin doing something that's not sitting around watching American MTV and stuffing his face with pizza. Mostly he just moped around the house writing music and refusing to go on dates with hot chicks. I almost feel guilty about the amount of sex I have. Almost."

Kame laughs, because Yamashita is a total airhead, and he can see why Jin likes him, because Yamashita is easy and uncomplicated. He teases, but not too much, and his every emotion is apparent on his face in private, despite the fact that he's got these soulless eyes in public. Kame thinks it might be because Yamashita doesn't know how much of his personality to show anymore, so he doesn't show any at all.

"It's hard for me to imagine Jin doing nothing," Kame admits, and Yamapi looks at him strangely. "He's always out partying, it seems."

"Really?" Yamapi says, and then he scratches his head. "Jin only goes out partying to distract himself, I think. I don't know. Jin's more complicated than he used to be."

Kame doesn't think that's true, but Yamashita would know better than him. "Jin's always been complicated," Kame says, and Yamashita grins again. He's got really ugly teeth, Kame thinks, but a really wonderful smile.

"Maybe for you," Yamashita says. "For me, it's always been video games and a six pack. And occasionally listening to whining about how the media takes everything he says wrong."

The elevator dings, and Yamashita steps out. "Nice seeing you Shuuuuuuji!" Yamashita says, and Kame smiles at him, waving goodbye. He likes Yamashita.

 

-

Kame remembers when he hated Yamashita, when Yamashita had yelled at Jin and told him to stop picking his 'boyfriend' over hanging out with him, and he and Yamashita had brawled like idiots in the park. Jin hadn't talked to either of them for days. Kame hadn't understood.

"How can you let him talk about you like that?" Kame asks, and Jin shrugs.

"I don't care if other people think that about me, about us," Jin replies, not really looking at Kame. 

"I care," Kame says. "It's really bad for our careers if people think that way about us for real. It's okay if it's fan service, but it can't be real, or we're in trouble."

Jin frowns. "Not everything is about our career," Jin says, and Kame glares at him.

"I didn't give up everything so I could lose the one thing I've gotten on something that isn't even true." 

Jin's face steels, and then he roughly jams his fingers into his hair and pulls. "You're right," he says. "It's not true. I'm sorry, Kame, I'll try and better understand your feelings."

"Thanks," Kame says, and then he leans toward Jin to bump their shoulders together. But Jin leans away, and offers him a weak smile. 

Jin starts hanging out with Yamashita a lot more after that. It is a long while before Kame forgives Yamashita for stealing Jin away.

-

Jin is pouting at Kame. He looks like he used to look when Kame got all serious about rehearsal and Jin was more interested in getting lunch. It makes Kame feel like a balloon, floating up into the sky. "No Jin, I am not skipping rehearsal with KAT-TUN to go to an arcade with you."

Jin increases the strength of his pout, making these big doe eyes that call to mind an anime character, or Bambi.

Kame laughs at him, freely, and Jin's face lights up at the sound.

Kame reaches out, and grabs a tendril of Jin's hair, curling it around his fingers. "I love your smile," Kame tells him. "I missed it." 

Jin is looking at Kame with this strange expression, somewhere between fear and joy. It's fierce, that look, and it makes Kame shiver, for some reason. "Kame," Jin says quietly. "I'm sorry."

Jin's fingers wrap around Kame's wrist, and it feels just like Kame remembers it, even though Jin's fingers are longer and the skin is more rough. "Okay," he says, and Jin's always had this impossibly perfect smile, one that makes the whole room feel like the sun is shining only on them. Kame feels trapped in its radiance, just like he always does, and it hurts but it feels so good. Kame feels so warm, so whole, when Jin is like this, so close to him and so happy to be there. 

It's like all these years, Kame's been in a dark cave, and finally, he's been let back out into the light of day.

Kame tells Tatsuya that he feels sick, and then calls his manager to tell him the same story. They don't go to an arcade, because Kame might get caught in his lie by the paparazzi. Instead they go to Jin and Yamapi's apartment, and play video games until Jin falls asleep on Kame's shoulder, arms touching hands pressed back to back against each other. Kame wants to lace them together, and he's not sure what that means, because there are no cameras rolling, and he shouldn't be feeling like that at all.

Jin always makes him _want things_ , like nothing else ever has. He wanted nothing more, when they first met, than he wanted to be Jin's friend.

Jin stirs in his sleep, and nuzzles Kame's abdomen. It tickles. "Kame," he whispers, and Kame doesn't know if Jin's asleep or awake. "Have you ever wanted something you couldn't have?" Kame can barely make out the words, but when he deciphers them, he licks his lips with self-consciousness.

Kame shivers and remembers how he used to pray for Jin to look at him again, even just once, after he unexpectedly disappeared from Kame's life. How Jin was there but it felt like he wasn't. "Have you?"

"Yeah," Jin mumbles, and Kame can feel Jin's lips against his thigh, through his jeans. It tickles. "I have."

Later, when Jin wakes up, they eat Kame's leftover ice-cream from the convenience store that's in the fridge, and Kame goes home around one in the morning, because he's got to be at work at six thirty. Jin sleepily shows him to the door, and his eyes are so affectionate and open Kame that feels sixteen, and he wishes he could just go to sleep in Jin's bed like they used to.

They never get around to talking about Jin's question again, so Kame doesn't know if Jin remembers asking him at all. 

Kame isn't sure how he would have answered.

\- 

Nakamaru is good for Kame, as a friend. He has Yamashita and Ryo, and despite clashing personalities, he gets along with all the other guys in KAT-TUN, and considers them friends, even prickly Tatsuya who's always scoffing and never means it. He's got artist friends, who all smoke and talk about modern art, and he's got grungy friends who he almost never sees anymore because there's no time, that like to get him drunk and tease him about being a perfectly manicured idol. He's got other Johnnys too, especially Ohno, who always makes time to message him, and see how he's doing.

But Nakamaru likes the quiet, and Kame doesn't ever feel like he has to entertain him or be on around him. Kame can just be, with Maru. It's like that with Jin, too, only Jin has always made him jittery too, with this unidentifiable _excitement_ that wells up in his gut and makes him want.

"You okay?" Nakamaru says, and when Kame nods, he puts a calm hand on his arm and smiles. "Okay, just checking."

Sometimes Kame wants to tell Nakamaru how confused he is, how much he's loosing control lately, with Jin. But it feels selfish, and Kame should be able to deal with it on his own.

They all have a part to play, and Kame has to hold up his end of the bargain.

-

Kame breaks up with his first girlfriend when he is 21 years old.

Kame experiences his first heartbreak long before that, when Jin suddenly stops answering all his calls.

-

Honoko feels restless and alone in the mornings, when no one else is awake. After a night out entertaining, it's always hard to sleep.

Or is Kame, who feels restless?

Either way, behind his eyelids, he always finds Jin. 

-

Kame doesn't know what makes Jin want ice-cream in mid autumn, but he follows along dutifully anyway, just to soak up Jin's presence.

It's not cold at all, Kame thinks, but that might just be Jin's natural warmth.

Jin's using all these big, wild hand gestures to tell some story about how he and Yamashita had caught Tegoshi in a compromising position with a busty costume assistant, and he's making all these horrified faces because he hates Tegoshi even though Yamashita adores him, and Kame just feels...whole.

It's weird, how Kame thought everything was fine before, but now it's so much better. The world is so much brighter, Kame thinks. He hasn't seen such vivid colors in ages. The air hasn't tasted so fresh, either.

"Kame, you're not even listening," Jin says, huffing.

"Yes I am."

"What did I just say?" Jin's teasing him, mischievous look on his face.

"You're really special to me," Kame says to Jin without conscious thought, and Jin looks at him, and looks some more, and there's something Kame doesn't understand written in his gaze. 

"That's not what I just said." A nervous chuckle. "You're special to me too," Jin says. "You...always have been."

Later, Kame wonders if it was him or Honoko that said that to Jin, and if it really matters anymore.

-

"Hiko," Jin says, and Honoko can barely hear him over the pouring rain. Jin's hair is sticking to his face. And to his neck, and drops of water cling to his eyelashes and drip down his skin. His face is too open, and too exposed. "Hiko, I can't do this anymore."

"Do what, Takamori?" Honoko asks, but he knows the answer already, before the words ever even leave his lips.

"Pretend it's not here," Jin yells, cutting through the rain and the wind straight to Honoko's heart. "Pretend that you're not special to me. Pretend you're not my friend."

"What else can you do?" Honoko says, letting his voice rise to be heard above the downpour. "What else can I do? You know it has to be this way."

"Does it?" Jin questions bitterly. "Why? Why does everything have to be so...unfair?"

"Life is unfair," Honoko replies, something like despair creeping into his voice. "Haven't you noticed that yet?"

Jin swallows, and Honoko can see his Adams apple quivering, crystalline drops of water sliding down the smooth, beautiful column of Jin's neck. "I know..." Jin starts, but then his jaw clenches. "I know that there's a lot of things standing between us," Jin says. "But I'm really tired of society denying me everything I've ever wanted. Aren't you tired of that too?"

Jin reaches out to touch him, and Honoko knows it's wrong, knows he should say no or step away. But when Jin reaches out and puts his arms around Honoko, gathering him close in an armful of wet silk, all Honoko can do is breathe in the scent of camellia flowers on the evening air, and relish the sticky contact of Jin's wet cheek against his own. Jin's soft sigh in his ear makes him shiver, and Honoko doesn't know what else to do but gather up the fabric of Jin's gi in his own hands and clutch him closer.

"Yes," Honoko whispers, and Jin stills to listen. "I'm tired of that." 

Jin presses his lips to Honoko's neck, softly, in a gentle kiss, and Honoko feels his heart skip a beat. 

They stand there for a long time, alone, in the pouring rain. It feels as though the world is standing still, and Honoko wonders if it's only like this, under the crying skies, that he and Jin can pretend they are part of the same world.

"But this, Takamori, isn't a dream. This is reality." Honoko pulls back, and it's so much colder than it was only moments ago. "Real life is much harsher than stolen moments in the dark."

 _"Kazuya,"_ Jin says, his voice thin and barely audible.

Honoko turns around, and walks back into the teahouse. 

-

Kame's neck tingles from Jin's lips. The cameras won't have caught it, that tiny kiss, but Kame feels like they should have, because it was perfect. Jin's instincts have been perfect.

He's not sure if Jin actually said his real name, or if he only imagined it.

They film the scene two more times, but Jin doesn't kiss his neck again. 

Jin is shivering. His lips are parted, and his hair is plastered to his face from the freezing cold water. The navy of his hakama is almost black, and so are Jin's eyes, which are looking at Kame so intently he feels like Jin can see through him all the way to the other side.

Kame is shivering too, but it's not because of the cold. 

The director will probably choose the first take in editing.

-

Kame and Junno go out with one of their managers, and he presses fruity drink after fruity drink into their hands.

Kame tries to protest, but it's impossible.

 _Where r u?_ He texts to Jin, the screen blurring before his eyes.

 _I'm at home._ Comes quickly in response.

 _My home?_ Kame texts, and Jin responds even faster.

_R u drunk?!_

_Not my fault!_ Kame types back.

Jin writes _haha_ back, and then stops responding to messages.

But when Kame gets home, Jin is standing outside of his door, waiting. 

"No fun to be drunk alone," Jin says, and Kame grins.

-

The first time Kame gets drunk, it's on accident, and it's Jin's fault.

Jin feels so guilty the next morning, as Kame throws up, that he buys Kame lunch for three days.

Kame thinks he must have made a real ass of himself, because Jin keeps smiling guiltily every time he looks at him.

He asks Koki about it, but Koki give him a weird look. "All you did was cuddle with Jin like you were his pet or something. You guys are gross," Koki says, and Kame lets Jin buy him lunch for the fourth day in a row.

-

The day has long since turned to evening, and Kame can feel his shoulders falling forward with exhaustion. Jin sits next to him, arms inside his t-shirt like a little kid because his jacket's too far away to retrieve. A cigarette hangs from his mouth as he expertly puffs on it, and Jin is looking up at the night sky. "The stars are so bright."

"Yeah," Kame says, but he's not looking at the sky at all, because he's looking at Jin. "They are."

Jin's hair is pulled away from his face with a headband, and his features look sharp with only the dim light of the trailer headlights to see by. His skin looks dewy though, and bright, as if he was one of the stars himself. "I'm really happy," Jin says, turning to look at Kame, his eyes soft. "That I got to work with you on this."

"Me too," Kame replies, meeting Jin's gaze and feeling inexplicably anxious. "It's been really..." _Wo derful, healing, enlightening, thrilling._ Kame can think of hundreds of words, but none of them seem quite right. "Really..."

"I think so too," Jin says, like he knows exactly how Kame feels right now, knows how hard it is to pick just the right word. "I used to dream about this. Both of us being famous together."

"I did too." Those dreams wrapped around him like a vice, then, choking him and making him work harder and harder, until he let go of Jin's hand and couldn't manage to find it again.

"Really?" Jin asks, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. "I always thought you wanted to leave me behind."

"I was just trying to keep up," Kame breathes, turning from Jin to look up at the stars for himself. They aren't nearly as bright as Jin. "I was just trying to catch you."

Jin laughs. "I wouldn't have left you for anything back then, Kame. It seemed like you didn't want me."

"Back then," Kame says, shutting his eyes as a gust of wind blows across them both, and makes Jin shiver next to him. "Back then, I wanted to be your friend more than anything."

Jin leans closer. "I wanted..." he starts, but then he sneezes, and it startles a laugh out of Kame, who unzips his jacket and slides it down his shoulders.

"Here, stupid," Kame says, a smile playing with the corner of his lips. "You always get cold, and you always forget your jacket."

"Thanks," Jin says, slipping into the jacket, his face tinged with chagrin. His wrists stick out of the sleeves, because the arms of the jacket are too short, and it stretches tightly across Jin's shoulders.

"Better?" Kame asks, and then another burst of wind chills them both. 

"Much," Jin says, before he scoots closer to Kame and drops an arm around his shoulder. "So you won't be cold," Jin softly whispers, and it makes the hairs on the back of Kame's neck stand up.

"Okay," Kame says, because this feels like now but it also feels like then, and Jin has always made Kame feel warm.

-

The Milky Way looks so wide, lately, when Kame looks up at the night sky, and Kame feels kind of lonely.

There's the faint shadow of something across the way, and maybe it's a person, but it could just be Kame's imagination.

-

Kame has already appeared on a show in the morning with KAT-TUN, and he's tired already. But the moment he's in costume, all except for his wig, the exhaustion evaporates like moisture in the sun. 

Jin peeks his head into Kame's dressing room, his smile bright and infectious. Kame doesn't smile though, because Honoko doesn't smile, and Kame is Honoko from the moment the first layer of his kimono is slipped over his broad shoulders, turning them androgynous and narrow. "Kame, you're here!"

Kame's heart flutters in his chest, tentatively, a chick about to fly for the first time, because Jin is inescapably beautiful. "Yeah, I got here about thirty minutes ago. I wanted to go over the script again before we film."

Jin is already in costume too. He'd been filming all morning, most likely. Jin looks comfortable in his costume, probably because it's his second period film in three years, and Kame forgets, when he rests his hand comfortably on the hilt of his katana, that he's not really a samurai. "You take acting really seriously, huh, Kame?" Jin says, and he leans in too close. Jin is always too close lately, even when he's across the room, and it makes Kame tremble.

Kame picks up the scent of pine, fresh in Jin's hair. Jin always smells like pine, to Kame. He absently licks his lips, and something changes in Jin's eyes. 

"Hey Kame," Jin softly murmurs. "I..."

Kame shifts, and looks up at Jin from under his darkened lashes. "You smell like pine trees," Kame says.

There's a sudden moment of tension as Jin looks at him wonderingly, like Kame is amazing or awe-inspiring, the way Jin used to look at him when they were kids and Kame got the choreography right on the first try, or when Kame chose him first for team challenges. Jin traces the black kohl on Kame's brows lightly with his thumb, careful not to smear it, and then he breathes in. "I really love you," he exhales, his voice incredulous and searching and scared all at once.

Kame is caught off guard, because it feels so natural and true, like the cameras are still rolling. Like this is a missing scene from their movie, because the timing is so perfect. 

But there are no cameras, just Jin, anxious, trembling, terrified Jin, who drags Kame into his arms tightly, hugging him, Kame's ear pressed against Jin's heartbeat because he's still sitting down.

Kame doesn't want to pull away. Jin's arms are comforting, and the feeling of Jin's lips pressing into his temple is indescribable, like fire and ice at the same time, or like the way Kame feels at first snowfall, like everything is clean and white and untarnished in the world. Like the way Kame felt years ago, Jin warm above him and the snow cold beneath him.

It's confusing. It makes him ache, it makes him want to reach out and...

But then Jin's wakazashi gets caught on Kame's obi, Honoko's obi, and Kame can't figure out which one of those two people he is right now. That makes him pull away, pushing Jin away from him swiftly, and scoot back. He feels hot, so hot, and a little like there isn't any air in the room. "Jin, _no._ "

Jin looks confused, his face red and big brown eyes wide and shining with all sorts of things Kame can't begin to fathom. "You don't... Was I wrong?" Jin's face is falling into something that might be misery. 

" _This_ ," Kame says. "I can't do this."

"Why not?" Jin replies, running a quivering hand through his hair. "I'm special to you, right? I've always been special to you. And you...you've always been special to me too. Why can't I be what you want?" Jin's voice catches. "What do you want, Kame?" 

"What I want," Kame whispers. He knows exactly what Honoko wants. He wants to pull Jin as close as he can and never let go. He wants to kiss Jin, and feel the heat of Jin through all the layers of silk and cotton and linen, because Jin is so warm, like a glimpse of summer in the middle of winter. But this is Jin, not Honoko's samurai, and Kame can't make sense of his own desires right now. 

Kame knows what he doesn't want. He doesn't want Jin to look at him like he is right now, like Kame has ripped his heart out of his chest and is holding it in the palm of his hand, squeezing way too tight. Like all of his happiness hinges on Kame knowing what to do, on Kame not throwing his heart on the ground.

"Do you really not know what you want? Kame, this can't have been all in my imagination, this thing between us... I'm not that creative." Jin's hands are clenched now, and he looks a little panicked. "Kame, what do you want?"

Kame doesn't say anything at all. It feels like a waterfall in his head, or maybe like a hurricane.

"What do you want?" Jin asks again, raising his voice slightly, and Kame can't breathe at all. "Kame, what do you want?"

"I don't know!" Kame yells, because he doesn't have any idea. "This isn't me. These aren't my feelings. We're just caught up in the characters, Jin. Caught up in what's between Takamori and Honoko. This isn't real, none of it's real!" he remembers when they were kids, when he felt confused just like this, and it hurts and Kame isn't allowed to want, to need, and he shoves it all down as deep as he can because the only reason he's thinking about is because of Honoko. 

Jin is staring at him, stricken. "Kame, what...?"

"These things I feel for you, no matter how much I...they aren't my feelings," Kame says, and then he swallows. The silk of his kimono shifts as he moves. "They're Honoko's feelings, and I'm just getting confused. It's not real, _none of it's real_. Don't you see Jin? We're getting too deep into the roles and--"

"Kame," Jin says quietly, refusing to look at Kame at all as he speaks. "I don't get my real feelings confused with my characters’ feelings. They're two distinct things for me. And I'm not... Have I ever been that good at pretending to feel something? The way I feel about you... that's just me. Just Jin. Who really...really cares for you. Really... loves..." Jin chokes on his words, and maybe a sob. "Loves you. Has for a long time, really. Loves you so much he had to stay away so it wouldn't hurt so much."

Kame closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see Jin shrinking into himself. "I'm sorry, Jin. I'm so sorry. But it's just how I act, my method. I become the character, and..."

"I get it," Jin says, his voice cracking. "It's not real for you. You can stop, now." Kame looks at Jin, again, and Jin is staring at the floor.

"Jin," Kame says helplessly, and it feels like he's crumbling, and Jin looks like he's crumbling too. "Jin, I..."

 _"Stop!"_ Jin snaps, and then he winces. He turns around and tugs his hair free, and it falls like a black curtain around his face, hiding it from view. "It's enough, Kame. It's enough already."

Jin retreats from Kame's dressing room, and Kame is left sitting limply on his chair until one of the assistants comes in to help him put on his wig. Later, hours later, when he's back in his own clothes, Kame can still hear the sound of rustling silk in his ears. But barely, because his other thoughts are too loud.

-

In the mountain depths,  
Treading through the crimson leaves,  
The wandering stag calls.

When I hear the lonely cry,  
Sad--how sad!--the autumn is.

\-- Sarumaru, 5

-

Now that Kame finally has the whole picture, somehow he's even more jumbled up inside.

The idea that Jin has been secretly... _something_ towards him for so long sits like lead in his stomach. He guesses he can see it now, in the soft touches and the wide-eyed blushing. He guesses, if he looks back, everything will fall into place with this one extra piece of knowledge.

The thing is, for Kame, Jin's always been this slightly homophobic playboy, who jerks when you do even the most mild fan service unless he initiates it or it's planned. Kame thinks this makes sense now, if Jin is really attracted to men and it's not just pretending for him. It's not like Johnny's idols can actually be gay. The whole point is that they're potential boyfriends for all Japanese girls, and they can't be so completely unavailable. 

Kame's never thought about his own sexuality. He's only been in a couple of relationships, and they've been with older, domineering women who knew exactly what they wanted, which is good because Kame never had to think about what he wanted, what he wants. They were beautiful and willing to be in-charge, and Kame didn't have to think at all. It was just like with his job. Become the character, play the part, on to the next assignment.

Kame knows the world thinks he's kinda gay, probably, but the truth is he's never thought about it. For him, wanting someone sexually or emotionally has always been something he's afraid of, because it's too close to hoping, too close to dreaming. Kyoko had been aggressive, and Kame had been vulnerable, then, feeling so abandoned by Jin that he had clung to her affection, without contemplating what it meant.

Kame wants to ask Jin how he knows. How he knows what he feels for Kame isn't part of the whole "pretend to be gay with each other" Johnny's package, or the result of playing these two characters who flirt with the line between friendship and romance.

But Jin, Kame realizes, has always known himself. Jin always knows what he wants. Kame admires that about Jin-- that he can reach out, with both arms, even when he's terrified.

Kame just shoves everything down as deep as he can, and pulls his baseball cap lower over his forehead.

-

"They got the Brave Samurai," Honoko hears one day, and he can feel bile rising in his throat. “He committed honorable suicide.”

He doesn't believe it until he sees the government flier. Honoko sees the wet parchment nailed to a lantern post, torn at the edges and the ink smudged. He reaches out a hand to trace the characters with a fingertip, but suddenly the letters start swimming in front of his eyes.

He wonders when it started to rain. But no one is opening an umbrella, so maybe Honoko is just crying.

-

When they film the scene where Honoko comes to grips with Takamori being dead, Kame finds it surprisingly simple to cry. He releases these fierce, wracking sobs that make his whole body quake, and when the director yells “cut” everyone is looking at him like he's done something awesome. Jin is studying him, face unreadable, and his hands are knotted into his hakama, the knuckles white. 

Kame wipes his face on the wet washcloth one of the assistants hands him, and when he looks back up, Jin is gone.

 

-

It is by its breath  
That autumn's leaves of trees and grass  
Are wasted and driven.

So they call this mountain wind  
The wild one, the destroyer.

\--Funya no Yasuhide, 22

-

Jin, over the past few months, had worked his way back into being a constant in Kame's life, and never is that more apparent than now, when suddenly he's gone again. Kame still sees him every day, on set, but mostly they aren't filming together, because Saigou is off having samurai battles and Honoko is giving lifeless dance performances swallowed in grief and misery. It's good they aren't acting opposite each other right now, because Jin won't meet Kame's eyes, and Kame thinks his world feels really dark without Jin's luminous smile brightening it up. 

It feels the same as it felt the last time Jin abruptly withdrew from him, physically present but completely emotionally unavailable, only worse, because this time he knows why, and he doesn't know how to make it better.

Kame doesn't want to think about the way his heart leaps into his throat when Jin brushes past him to get to the coffee, as they stand at the edge of the set while Maki films the conclusion to one of the movie's subplots. He also doesn't want to think about the way his heart sinks back down heavily when Jin walks away again without saying a word.

As usual, Kame doesn't know what to do. As usual, Kame doesn't know what he wants. 

Kame wants to curl up in the corner now and wrap his arms around his knees and see if Jin will come and sit next to him. 

He also wants to run his fingers through Jin's wild dark hair, but he thinks that might be Honoko and not Kame. It's all so confusing.

When Kame goes outside, face still wet from half-heartedly washing off his make-up, to meet the car that's waiting to take him to his next engagement, something inside of him tells him to turn around. He does, and Jin is just looking at him from the doorway, and Kame, or maybe Honoko, can feel his heart break.

Acid is sloshing around in his belly, and he wants this movie, this amazing, wonderful, difficult movie, to be done, so he can get rid of all these confusing character emotions and Kame can fix things with Jin, somehow.

It probably won't be that easy, Kame knows. The acid is melting his insides.

"Is it broken, forever?" he asks Jin, when they are both wrapped in robes over their costumes, the early December air easily cutting through the layers of cotton they both wear. "Are we broken forever?"

Jin frowns, and doesn't answer. 

"I'm..."

"I know," Jin says finally, _finally_ , and then he walks away. 

There's a famous Japanese folktale that Kame heard when he was a child, about an old man who refused to love. At the end of the tale, he dies alone at the peak of a mountain in the middle of a brutal winter, and no one misses him at all.

It's supposed to be a cautionary tale. Kame can't imagine the top of the mountain being any colder than this.

-

Honoko has never been very good at playing instruments. His hands are short and square, perfect for gripping the hilt of a katana, or for climbing atop a horse. 

The Brave Samurai's hands had been gentle and long, masculine and feminine in the same moment. He wrung melodies out of everything he touched.

Honoko wishes he could have said a lot of things, but he had been waiting.

There had been a perfect moment in the rain once, but Honoko had run away. Now there would never be another perfect moment.

-

Honoko and Kame are the same, really. Both of them hide behind masks, and push their hearts down below the soles of their feet. Both of them are so damn afraid to feel. Maybe that's why this is all so hard.

-

Nakamaru is the only one in the lobby when Kame arrives. "Traffic," he says to Kame as they head up to the usual dressing room at Potato, not looking up from his magazine as he walks. "Don't freak out, they're all together and they'll be here as soon as the driver can get them here." Nakamaru sits down on the couch.

"I'm not going to freak out," Kame croaks, and Nakamaru looks up quickly from his magazine at the tone of Kame's voice.

"Are you quite alright, Kame?" Nakamaru is looking at him with his eyebrows pushed together, even more concerned when he catches sight of Kame's appearance, and Kame wonders what he must look like. "You look like you died last month, and your corpse has come for the interview."

"I think I..." Kame pushes his hands into his pockets and feels the tight denim scrape both sides of his hands. "I'm really. Confused. About Jin."

Nakamaru frowns. "What's he done now?" 

Kame shakes his head. " Nothing, it's just." Kame doesn't know how to phrase it. "It's hard to separate the movie from real life."

Nakamaru is looking at him like he has three heads, and Kame is really trying to explain it. "Kame, whole thoughts please. I'm not that good at extrapolating."

"In the movie, our characters are sort of... in love with each other." Kame fumbles, and Nakamaru's eyebrows reach for the ceiling. 

"Come again?"

"Well, not really, but it's this underlying thing that's not explicit, but totally...and you know how I am about characters..." Nakamaru is the only person Kame has tried to explain it to, this thing he does.

"You feel like you're in love with Jin?" Nakamaru asks, scooting over so that Kame can collapse beside him on the sofa, and curl onto his friend's side.

"No," Kame says. "Well, yes, but I know it's not... But Jin..."

Nakamaru freezes. "Kame, look," Nakamaru says after a minute or so of silence. His voice sounds tense, and nervous. "Whatever you're thinking, it's probably better if you don't try and figure out what Jin--" It's too nervous, Nakamaru's tone. Out of character. Avoidant.

Kame snaps his head up to look into Nakamaru's eyes. "You knew," he says, interrupting whatever Nakamaru was about to say. "That's why Jin still talks to you. He told you, or you figured it out. You knew."

A deep exhale, and Kame can feel the tension flowing out of Nakamaru's body with all the air. "Yeah," Nakamaru says. He cracks his neck, and absently clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth like a snare drum.

"I thought we were friends," Kame tells him, wounded. "Why would you not tell me this?"

"Jin's my friend too," Nakamaru snaps back at him, and Kame guiltily shifts back, before he slouches back into Nakamaru. His face mashes sideways into Nakamaru's ribs, and he mumbles into the soft material of Nakamaru's soft argyle sweater.

"Yeah, I know," Kame sighs. "Just, I don't get it. Jin was my best friend, and then, out of nowhere, he wouldn't even look at me."

Nakamaru closes the magazine, then, and looks down at the cover with an unfocused stare. "I still remember Jin's face, then."

Kame is quiet, and doesn't say anything. He just listens.

"We were preparing for debut, I think, and we were all a little strung out. Jin was sitting alone in the bathroom after a rehearsal. He was sitting on the sink, and his hair was in his face and his back was all curled forward, and it was weird, you know? Because Jin is always cocky and energetic and he just looked so...defeated."

Kame can imagine it in his mind. He thinks defeated might have been the expression on Jin's face when Kame pulled away from him, saying 'no,' when all Jin's ever wanted to hear from him is 'yes.' Kind of lost, kind of broken.

"He told me...he told me it wasn't pretend when he looked at you, when he touched you. Not something to make the girls scream. Not a game." Nakamaru leans toward Kame nudging him with his shoulder affectionately. "I always thought it wasn't one sided, honestly."

Kame quirks his mouth. "It's a character. The person on stage is a character. The person in the movie is a character, too."

Nakamaru is looking at him closely now, eyes narrowed in thought. "What about the person who couldn't sleep if he didn't share a room with Jin in the old days? What about the person who wore matching pinky rings with him? What about the person who lit up whenever Jin entered the room? Linked hands with him under the table?"

Kame thinks back to those times, recalls the smooth skin of Jin's palm against his own. In those days, they could conquer anything, as long as they were together.

Nakamaru grins. "What about the person sitting here right now? Talking to me about Jin because he's all confused? Is that a character, too? Or are you just Kame?" 

Kame shifts uncomfortably. He wants to hug himself, but he doesn't do that anymore in front of people, because it draws more attention than it wards off. "I don't know."

"What do you want, Kame?"

Kame wishes he knew. "I said, I don't know!"

The door slams open, and Koki cheerfully sticks his head in the door, and he's followed by a lackadaisical Junno and a grumpy looking Ueda. "Sorry we're late, Kame-chan, but don't freak out, we're here!"

"Why does everyone think I'm going to freak out?" Kame mumbles. "I never freak out." His thoughts are still swimming from his conversation with Nakamaru. 

Tatsuya snorts. "You do this thing where you get all quiet and stressed, and you sit all stiffly and you get this weird, vacant look in your eyes, and then you start talking to yourself," he says. "Like some creepy fortune teller who can see the apocalypse in every late arrival."

Junno nods sagely. "Kind of like now, actually."

Kame actively tries to relax his stiff back, and feels a tiny smile tugging at his face. Nakamaru claps him on the back and looks at the others. "Kame's got better things to freak out about than traffic," Nakamaru says. "Let's leave him to get dressed."

Koki bounds out to make-up, and Nakamaru herds everyone out after him. He turns to Kame just as he's about to close the door, and smiles encouragingly. "Figure out what Kame wants," Nakamaru says. "I don't think you've thought about your own desires in a long time. That's not the normal way to live your life, Kame."

"I don't have a life. My life is this," Kame says, gesturing outward at the sets, the costumes and the cameras. 

Nakamaru glares at him. "You're entitled to more than that, Kame, and you know it."

When Kame is finally alone, the first thing he does is pull his knees up to his chest, and hug them tight. He can faintly feel Jin sitting down next to him, a shade of a memory, then, arm warm against Kame's.

Kame doesn't know what Kame wants.

He rocks back and forth there, eyes closed and all he can see is Jin but he still doesn't know. "I don't know," he whispers, and no one is there to hear it and it hurts to say it. "I really don't know."

-

"Kame, let's play catch," Jin says, baseball in hand. He's grinning like a kid, and even though he's much older he looks twelve right now.

"Jin, we can't," Kame says patiently. "I have to finish my assignments."

"Kaaaame, don't be a robot, be a young guy!"

"I don't have time to be a young guy," Kame snaps, suddenly angry. "And neither do you."

"Of course I do. Of course you do," Jin says cajolingly. "You love baseball, Kame, come on."

That makes Kame even angrier. He snatches the ball from Jin and winds it up, throwing it out the window. The glass of the window cracks, and chunks fall on Kame's floor and down out onto the street below. Jin looks at him, mouth open in shock, and Kame swallows. "Catch."

"We don't have to play catch if you don't want to," Jin says after a few moments of silence.

Kame does his homework.

Jin leaves, and doesn't visit again.

He doesn't tell anyone about the window for three days. It lets cold air into his room at night, and Kame just pulls another blanket from the hall closet. 

He finds the ball on the street a few weeks later. It's heavy in his pocket until he sticks it in the box under his bed with his glove. His ring is in there, and maybe his whole heart is too.

-

Honoko hears Jin's voice before he even realizes he's awake. He thinks it must be a cruel trick of his subconscious, because Jin is dead.

But it's somehow Jin's voice he hears. Jin is laughing with his okiya mother, and Honoko doesn't know that he's ever heard her laugh before. 

Honoko wraps himself in a yukata quickly. His hands are shaking, and it can't really be Jin's voice because Jin... Jin is gone, and life isn't fair, and Honoko knows that things don't happen just because you wish for them with every fiber of your being, or because you'd give anything, anything at all, just to...

When she sees him, the mother's mouth sets into a serious line. But Honoko only has eyes for Jin, who stands there, wearing strange Western clothes, hair tied back at his neck. It's like a vision, but Honoko knows it isn't, because Honoko would never imagine Jin in anything but hakama and gi. 

His okiya mother speaks. 

"Gather your things. Not the kimono, those belong to this okiya. But your gifts, anything else that's yours. Gather those things." Honoko just stares, looking back and forth between Jin and the mother. "He's paid off your debt," she explains. "And wants to take you with him."

Honoko looks at Jin, who is biting his lip anxiously and looking at Honoko with wide, hopeful eyes. Honoko spins on his heel and races back up the wooden staircase.

His heart is going to beat right out of his chest, he fears, as the realization that Jin is downstairs waiting for him makes him fumble and drop things as he tries to pack them into a simple woven bag. He doesn't have much, but that's okay, because material items have never held much weight with him.

When he descends the stairs again, his eyes immediately fixate back on Jin. He has a slight limp, Honoko notices, but he's so achingly alive.

Jin leads Honoko outside, where two sturdy mares are waiting for them. "This horse is yours, Hiko. You're free. You can go wherever you want, be whatever you want."

Honoko runs a hand along the horse's flank, feeling the trembling muscles beneath his hand. "Thank you," he says. 

"I'm sorry it took so long for me to come," Jin says, after they've ridden out of the gates and onto the dirt road. Not many dirt roads remain, as the winds of change blow through Kyoto faster than a typhoon, turning everything they touch to electricity and industry. "I had to lie low."

"You're here now," Honoko manages. He looks over at the man, who sits proudly across a horse, his thighs straining against the charcoal colored pants. Jin's eyes are looking forward, into the distance.

"The time of the samurai is over," Jin informs him frankly, his hands gripping the reins white knuckled. "My father...took his own life."

"I'm sorry," is all Honoko can say. Jin squares his shoulders, and the stiff jacket follows along the lines of his narrow waist.

"That makes me, effectively, the head of my family," Jin continues. "And I've withdrawn my family's support from our Daimyo. Normally, that would spell death, only...Lord Kazenori has bigger worries at the moment. Like the collapse of his entire territory, and the encroachment of Americans into the capital. The shogunate is collapsing, just as we’d hoped. I don’t know if the new government is any better, run by power grubbing low-level samurai and merchants, but…"

"So what...can we do?"

"My family's lands to the south remain mostly untouched," Jin says, and he turns to Honoko. "I was thinking of starting a school. Where students practice and cultivate traditional Japanese culture."

Honoko looks away from Jin, up at the sky. Today it is eerily blue. Honoko knows if he looks behind him, he'll see the scarring silhouettes of newly established textile mills, and smoke in huge tunnels lifting into the air and spreading gray poison across Japan's beautiful landscapes. But in front of him, there are only the rising green hills and lush forested lands. "That sounds lovely," Honoko says earnestly, imagining Jin surrounded by children, as he teaches the flute and the tea ceremony. The image is crystal clear, and Honoko wants to hold it close to his heart.

And then Jin is clearing his throat. "You're free to go where you want, Honoko. Class means nothing anymore, really. Day by day it fades. The new government is flooded with corruption, and the merchants seize a little more power every day. Your name doesn't bear a black mark, not anymore." Honoko examines his hands. His nails will never turn translucent again. He will always know what he was. "But."

"But?" Honoko asks softly, his voice barely audible above the footsteps of their mounts. 

"But I was hoping you might stay with me." Jin's jaw is tight, and Kazuya can feel the tension rolling off of him in small waves. "My school will need a swordsmanship teacher. Just wooden blades, of course, but... "

"You want me to stay? With you?"

Jin is offering Honoko something he hasn't dared dream about, because Honoko doesn't dream. Jin is making Honoko believe in something he's never believed in, because Honoko doesn't believe in love. _"So my love has grown to be, Like the river's quiet depths,"_ Honoko says softly, the poem resounding loudly in his mind and in his heart.

"You might think it's silly, to do this now. But this is what I want."

"I think we all have the right to dream, and to make it come true," Honoko replies. "Even a failed, clumsy, not-so-brave samurai like you."

Jin halts his horse, and Honoko follows suit. Jin pats the horse soothingly on the head when she whinnies, and doesn't look up from her long neck when he speaks again. "Do you feel it, too? The red thread of destiny that connects us. Can you feel it?"

Honoko doesn't have to think. He doesn't answer with words, at first. He just reaches across the distance between them with one strong arm, and covers Jin's hand with his own. Jin has soft hands, like an artist.

Jin swallows, and peeks up through his long, luxuriant lashes at Honoko, eyes shining beneath half-lowered lids.

"Yes," Honoko says. "I suppose I can."

Honoko has maybe always felt that thread, and maybe he's seen it, too, dragging across the sky over a bridge of magpies.

-

Kame dreams again of being up in the stars, and gazing across the Milky Way.

The shadow becomes a figure. Jin is illuminated in starlight.

-

Honoko adjusts the katana and wakazashi at his waist, and straightens his haori over his broad shoulders. Here, no one cares if Honoko still wears his swords, because they are far from the government and the reach of the restoration. It won't find them quite yet. The weight of the two swords sits heavy on his hip, and his left hand fingers his family crest, embroidered carefully with golden threads, that sits over his heart.

When he looks up at the sky, it is cloudless. There will be no rain today. Honoko licks his lips, and he dreams.

-

Like Michinoku prints  
Of the tangled leaves of ferns,  
It is because of you

That I have become confused;  
But my love for you remains.

\--Minamoto no Toru, 14

-

When they wrap filming, Kame is relieved. Kame knows it will be a good movie. Jin was amazing, and Kame is not too humble or embarrassed to say he may have just given the performance of his career. 

But becoming Honoko has filled Kame with all these strange emotions that aren't his own, that can't be his own. He feels bewildered and full to bursting and he definitely can't look at Jin, because it makes his heart ache in a way that Kame's heart shouldn't ache for Jin. He knows it's Honoko's heart, not his own, that's beating so out of step, and that it's not beating for Jin so much as it's beating for the 'Brave Samurai'. Still, it's difficult to deal with, and Kame just wants it to stop. It's over now. He doesn't have to be Honoko anymore.

It's okay that he can't look at Jin, because Jin won't look at him either. He catches him staring only once, and it makes Kame flush with an uncomfortable pleasure that quickly turns sour when Jin cringes and turns away. 

Jin has always been so easy to read. That's why Kame is so surprised Jin is any good as an actor. 

-

Kame has a ritual, when he finishes filming. He gathers up all of his character, let's it fill him up to the brim. He pulls it in tightly, making sure he's gotten all of it. After that, he takes a two-hour shower, and lets the character ooze out of his pores and circle down the drain with the water and the make-up and everything, and then he's just Kame again.

When he finally emerges from the bathroom this time, though, and wraps himself in one of his overly expensive fluffy towels, he doesn't feel quite as empty as usual. He figures it's because he's never done a project this big before. It's not the longest thing he's ever filmed, but it's definitely the most intense. It rattled him down to the core. There's also the fact that Honoko isn't so very different from Kame, anyhow, so maybe Kame doesn't feel as empty because there wasn't as much character to let go of.

Kame throws on his pajamas, and when he walks past his phone he sees he has three new messages. The first is from his manager, who tells Kame that he has a read through for his new drama soon, and he'd better get started on leafing through his script.

The second is from Jin.

"Kame. It's me." Silence. "I just wanted to apologize for making things awkward and misinterpreting the situation. For ruining everything again." Another pause. "Yeah. I guess I thought... Well, you're a really good actor, I guess. Better than me, since I wasn't pretending." Jin takes a quick inhale of air, and Kame can hear him shaking even through the phone. "It was...it was nice to work with you again. I miss you. Don't be a stranger." Dial tone. 

Kame is holding the phone so tightly in his hand that it feels like it might snap in half. His heart is raging painfully against his ribs, and it hurts, and just hearing Jin's voice is like adding fuel to the fire that's been steadily burning inside of Kame since they started filming together. 

The third message is also from Jin. "Fuck, Kame, I'm not actually sorry. And you can't actually think that all of this is acting. You can't, okay? Don't you know how much it _hurts_ to watch you lock your humanity away? I miss everything. I miss you." And then Jin has hung up a second time, and Kame's knees feel weak, for some reason, and it's as if he's shattering all over the floor into a billion pieces far more perfect than the whole.

He tries to gather up all the pieces of Honoko he must still have left inside of him, but there's only Kame. Every single thing he finds when he looks inside himself is just Kame. It's hard to be just Kame. He hasn't had time to be just Kame in a long time. He hasn't known what Kame wanted in a long time. The key to the door of his heart is rusty, and Kame isn't sure if he can still turn it in the lock.

But maybe...

His body is still thrumming with that weird tingling he gets when Honoko thinks about Jin, is near Jin, hears Jin. Only it's _Kame_ who feels all that, and so it's Kame, not Honoko, who is in love with Jin, after all.

-

Color of the flower  
Has already faded away,  
While in idle thoughts

My life passes vainly by,  
As I watch the long rains fall.

\--Ono no Komachi, 9

-

The movie gets rave reviews in early screenings, critics hailing it as one of the must-see movies of the spring season. 

Kame gets good reviews too, although Koki gives him hell about how feminine he looks on the posters. Kame just flexes his arms and raises an eyebrow, and Koki usually retreats at the sight of Kame's much larger muscles.

It's strange, how raw Kame feels inside, how open and exposed. He feels like people must be able to look at him and know he's _aching_ , know he's miserable, know he's massively confused about what to do, what he can do.

He _wants_ to talk to Jin. He _wants_ to tell Jin a lot of things, but it's as if he can't, as if there's some giant wall he can't climb over between himself and his feelings.

Now that he knows it's Kame doing all the _wanting_ , he can't do anything about it at all. 

Kame sees Jin over and over again as they promote the film. Kame sinks into quicksand every time Jin brushes by him, or he smells the soft pine smell of Jin's hair. He sinks, and for just a moment, time seems to contemplate stopping, and then Jin moves away. Kame makes sure to be the perfect idol. Kame just smiles and smiles for the camera.

Jin doesn't smile, but the media doesn't really expect him to, not anymore. Kame thinks that's a damn shame, since Jin has the most beautiful smile he's ever seen.

"What was it like, Kamenashi, working with your former bandmate on the film?" the interviewer pries, and Kame swallows audibly.

"Like riding a bike," he says, and the interviewer laughs.

"You never forget how?" the interviewer asks curiously.

"Like even if you've forgotten, the moment you're doing it again, it makes you remember how free it used to make you feel. How exhilarating it is to feel the wind in your hair and the shift of the wheels underneath you. How wonderful youth is, and how you wish, sometimes, that now was then."

The interviewer looks at him mouth wide like a trout, before he gathers himself and turns to Jin. "And you Akanishi?"

"It was a reminder of the good things," Jin answers, and his voice is low and steady.

Jin won't look him in the eyes, and Kame feels adrift, but he shoves it down as deep as he can, because what has _wanting_ ever got him?

"Did you get my message?" Jin says to him after, while they sit as far apart as possible in the backseat of the car taking them to a variety show appearance. 

"Yes," Kame answers, and he opens his mouth to say more. There's so much he wants to say but it's Stuck. 

"Okay," Jin says, and it's not okay. _Nothing_ is okay, it's all broken and Kame wants to fix it. For some reason he can lie lie lie all day to a faceless lens but he can't say a single line of truth to help mend a seemingly endless rift.

Quicksand fills his mouth.

It's not okay.

-

"Saw your interview today," Tatsuya tells him when he walks into the udon shop where he's meeting Tatsuya and Koki for lunch. Koki is looking uncomfortably down at his noodles, toying with the tempura fish that is slowly getting soggy in his bowl. 

"Oh?" Kame queries, feeling uncomfortable too.

"Gay," Tatsuya says, and then shoves a big bite of noodles into his mouth. "Really, really gay."

Koki snorts, and Kame orders beef.

-

"Do you feel it, too? The red thread of destiny that connects us. Can you feel it?"

Yes, yes, yes.

And then he's crossing the Milky Way, and Jin is on the other side, surrounded by bulls.

-

"You're being stupid, probably," Ryo says, and Kame looks up at him from his cup of coffee.

"What?"

"You're wearing your 'there's something I want but I don't know how to ask for it or I think it's bad that I want it so I'm going to suffer in silence' face," Ryo informs him, and Kame raises one eyebrow.

"That's a long name for one face," Kame says, and Ryo shrugs. 

"You wear it so often it needed a descriptive name," he says, taking a sip of his own coffee, wincing, and adding more sugar. 

Kame and Ryo are strange friends. Neither of them are the other's normal type of friend, but there's some solace to be found in their easy appreciation of art and music, and the laid back way that Ryo teases Kame that never feels real at all, despite his famous poison tongue. Kame thinks Ryo feels less like he has to be on, around Kame, like how Kame feels around Maru.

"Oh yeah?" Kame asks, looking at Ryo carefully.

"Yeah," Ryo affirms, shaking his head. "It's not like the world is going to end if you take a chance on something you want, Kame. Whatever it is you're thinking about, just go for it."

Kame looks at Ryo through lowered lashes. "It's not that easy," Kame tells him. 

"Why not?" Ryo asks him, and then Ryo pays the check. "Let's go listen to music," Ryo tells him. "My other friends are too busy getting drunk or getting laid to go to guitar shows with me. Except for Jin, who's going through some emo phase. Was he like that on set?"

"No," Kame says. _At least not until I messed up,_ Kame wants to add, but instead, he just follows Ryo out into the evening air.

Kame drinks one too many beers, and it's a good night. But he can't help but wish Jin will be smiling and waiting for him when he gets back to his apartment.

Jin isn't, and his apartment has never felt more lonely.

-

Jin's face in the lantern light, embers of dying coals casting orange and yellow light across his soft features, is all Kame can see when he closes his eyes.

When he's awake, too, sometimes.

He doesn't know why he can't pick up the phone.

It would be easier if he'd never remembered how it felt, to want. Now he's got a baseball sitting in the palm of his hand, and no one is waiting to catch it.

-

Surely there is none  
Who will speak a pitying word  
About my lost love.

Now my folly's fitting end  
Is my own nothingness.

\--Fujiwara no Koremasa, 45

-

It's snowing. Night has fallen, or maybe it fell hours ago, Kame isn't sure. The snowflakes are big, the kind that make a fluffy cover on the ground that lasts for days.

Kame remembers how that snow feels pressed against his back, the way it looks in Jin's big, dumb fluffy hair, and something...snaps.

Kame finds himself outside of Jin's apartment before he can even think about it. His index finger has pressed down the doorbell, and he hears the chime echoing in his ears before his mind catches up. 

"What the hell? It's three in the morning, _assho-_ \- Kame?" Jin's hair is tousled, sticking up strangely on one side of his head, and his right cheek has creases on it from his pillowcase. His full mouth is caught in a frown that's slowly dropping into an 'o' of surprise, and he's not wearing a shirt. Just a low-slung pair of sweatpants with holes in the knees that Jin's probably had since they were kids. 

Kame thinks he looks breathtaking. 

Jin's eyes are wide, and they just stare at each other for a minute until Jin scratches the back of his head nervously, messing his hair up even worse. "Um, sorry. I thought you were Kusano, he's always...Never mind. Come in?"

Kame steps through the door, and slips off his shoes. He's surprised when Jin shoves a towel into his hands. "What?"

"You're all wet," Jin explains, and then he yawns. "You know, from the snow."

"Oh," Kame says, because he hadn't noticed it was still snowing. He also hadn't noticed he was driving, or that he was leaving his apartment at all, or anything up until the point where he found himself ringing Jin's doorbell.

Jin just keeps staring at him. Kame's throat is so very dry. "What are you doing here, Kame?" Jin asks, and Kame doesn't know the answer, not really.

Except maybe he does. "I have this ritual."

Jin is leaning against the wall in the hallway, his shoulder resting against surprisingly tasteful wood paneling. He's looking at Kame a little vacantly, like he's trying to find the connection between his question and Kame's response. "Um."

Kame wraps his arms around himself, because suddenly he feels a little cold. A little nervous, too. "I always take a really long shower after filming. I stand there and let everything go. Everything about the character and the film and everything gets washed away."

Jin's eyebrows draw together then. "So Honoko is gone then." Jin isn't asking a question, and his eyes shift away from Kame to stare at a photograph of him and Yamashita and Yamashita's sister on the wall. "Is this about my message? You already explained that there wasn't..." Jin gulps, and then clenches his jaw tight, soldiering on. "You already said it was all the character. You didn't have to come over here to tell me that."

Kame looks at Jin, who has his shoulders slightly hunched, now. A piece of tangled hair is obscuring his face. The hallway is mostly dark, and shadows play across his bare neck and chest. He looks fragile, to Kame, like he might break, somehow. But he won't. Jin is strong, like the steel of a blade, thin but inflexible, dangerous yet reliable. "Only, when I got out of the shower, and Honoko was gone...It didn't really change as much as I thought."

Jin slowly lifts his head to stare at Kame. "What do you mean?" Jin says, and there's something in his eyes. Kame thinks is might be hope, because hope is what he feels blossoming in his own chest like plum blossoms in the early spring.

Kame steps closer to Jin, and then closer still. "So right now, I'm just me," Kame whispers, and his lips brush the skin of Jin's jaw as he leans forward. Jin pauses, his breath seeming to stop. "And the things I want now; those are real."

Jin tentatively rests his hands on Kame's biceps, and pushes Kame lightly back. He looks at Kame, his expression serious and intent. There's a dark flush going down his neck and chest, too, that makes Kame want to touch him. "What do you want?" Jin asks, voice husky and dark and smooth, like the whisper of the wind through the trees on an autumn evening, making Kame shudder. 

"You," Kame says, and then Kame is pressed against the wall tightly, the wood digging into his back. Jin has one hand curled against the back of his head, fingers caught up and tangled into his sopping hair. Jin's other hand is resting on Kame's hip, and Kame can feel it through the thick, soaking denim of his jeans. 

"Thank GOD," Jin says, and then he finds Kame's mouth. 

It's not like his dream at all. Jin is eager and clumsy and his mouth is wet. It's not calculated or careful, but it is a little desperate, and Kame thinks this is even better. Jin moans a little, against his lips, and it makes Kame want to pull him even closer, so he does. Jin feels like lava in his arms, and Kame likes it, likes feeling so alive, so vibrant. He'd forgotten what if felt like, to want something so much it hurts. He'd forgotten what it felt like to just be Kame, to want nothing but Jin.

Jin's tongue slips into his mouth, and wraps around Kame's, and Kame feels like this is maybe what he's always wanted from Jin, and maybe he's wanted to feel this close to Jin since the first time Jin's bony adolescent fingers wrapped around Kame's equally thin wrist. 

"I love you," Jin says against Kame's lips. "I love you, I love you, I love you," and Kame wants to respond, to tell Jin that Kame's never, ever _wanted_ something so much in his entire life, but he can't because Jin's tongue has stolen it's way back between his lips, and Kame would be crazy to pull away to do something as silly as talking. There will be plenty of time for that, later.

Jin's hands roam all along Kame's torso, dancing along his skin and roaming up and down the column of his spine, until Kame can't take it anymore, and he pushes Jin backwards, hard, slamming Jin against the opposite wall and pressing in. "Jin," he mumbles, and Jin laughs, lightly, and then moans again when Kame bites lightly on his neck. Kame soothes the spot with his tongue, and Jin let's out a tiny choked gasp and his nails dig in to Kame's shoulders.

"Kame," Jin pleads, and Kame is happy to oblige, nibbling his way down to Jin's sensitive collarbone and lightly flicking his tongue into the hollow. Jin doesn't shriek, but he makes this hitching noise, like a keening whine, that goes straight to Kame's cock. Jin's hands toy with the waistband of his jeans, tugging him closer by his belt loops, _as if it was possible for Kame to be closer_ , and they both gasp as they rub together, friction delicious. Kame searchingly leans his head up, and Jin brings his head down in the same moment, and their mouths meet again, off center and first, but quickly finding each other, moving together with urgency.

Kame can feel Jin's hard erection against his own, through Jin's sleep pants and Kame's jeans, and he pushes against it, on instinct. Kame thought it would be uncomfortable, to be like this with another guy, but it's not, it just feels like he's supposed to be here, like the heat of Jin against him is like how sex has supposed to have felt all this time-- like boiling summer heat and tense muscles and needy gasps that Kame can't control and doesn't want to control, either. And Jin, everywhere, surrounding him, wrapping around him like the soothing notes of a shamisen played on a summer night amidst the fireflies.

Jin juts his hips forward, too, seeking more pressure, and the friction is better than cake, better than baseball, and Kame wants everything that he can take from Jin, and Jin seems perfectly willing to give.

"Jin," says a familiar voice. "What the _fuck_ is going on out here?" Kame looks over through hazy eyes to see Yamashita, with his hair tied up in a ridiculous band on top of his head, wearing boxers and a tank top, and looking cranky and belligerent. "We agreed, when we got an apartment together, that there would be no shenanigans with women in the hallways if the other was home-- _holy shit_ , is that Kamenashi?!"

Jin has his face buried in the crook of Kame's neck, and he's shuddering a bit, with what Kame is pretty sure is laughter. "Hey Yamashita," Kame says wryly, to cover his embarrassment. "I'm not a... Um, _woman_ , exactly."

Yamashita has this 'deer in the headlights' stare as he looks disbelievingly at the scene in his hallway, before he awkwardly scratches his neck. "Oh. Right," Yamashita says, and then he shuffles backwards blindly. "Well, I'll just be... getting back to bed, then." He coughs lightly. "Right then. Um, goodnight," he mutters, and then the door closes. 

Jin is caught between humiliation and mirth, and Kame can feel a smile pulling at his own lips. "Hey," Kame lightly whispers to Jin. "Yamashita's right. The hallway isn't the right place for this." He leans forward and licks a long stripe up Jin's neck, and Jin's pulse quickens under his tongue. 

Kame looks up at Jin, whose swollen lips and lowered lids make him look like sin, and Jin isn't laughing anymore. He's pulling Kame by the belt loops back into his room, and Kame can't think of a single reason to protest this time.

It's what he wants, after all.

-

Now Kame has a third cherished memory of Jin, too. It's Jin, eyes closed and lips parted, body tangled up in sky blue sheets as the sun rises, covering him in purple and red rays of morning light.

Jin isn't saying anything at all, but even in sleep, he chooses Kame, fingers searching next to him until they meet Kame's skin, and then sighing and curling closer.

Kame doesn't fight the urge to lose his hand in Jin's hair, and it feels just as soft and wondrous as it always does. Jin sighs, contentedly, as Kame massages his scalp, and nuzzles Kame's forearm with his nose. "I thought I was dreaming."

"You are," Kame murmurs soothingly. "Don't open your eyes."

"Don't go anywhere," Jin mumbles, and throws an arm around Kame, and it lands awkwardly across his thigh and knee. 

Kame laughs, and pulls a sleepy, heavy Jin up into his arms.

"Okay," Kame says. "Alright."

"Maybe those words are just fine, after all," Jin says, slipping back into slumber. He feels flawless in Kame's arms, and Kame doesn't want to ever let go. Jin is beautiful in love.

"I love you," he whispers, and feels like an optimistic poet, admiring the perfection of the world as if it were an endless shining sky.

-

Over the wide sea  
As I sail and look around,  
It appears to me

That the white waves, far away  
Are the ever shining sky

\--Fujiwara no Tadamichi, 76

-

"Jin," Yamashita says, as Jin and Kame fight over pudding at the kitchen counter, because Jin is being selfish and refusing to share. "You should spend more time with me."

"You're the one who said _'Jin, why are you and your stupid face always sitting on the couch? Go make some more friends,'_ Pi," Jin responds, squealing with victory when he manages to dodge Kame's tickling fingers and jam the spoon into his mouth. His lips have a thin layer of chocolate on them, and he looks like a little kid, not a twenty-eight-year-old man.

"I didn't mean _'Abandon me completely for your boyfriend,_ '" Yamashita...Yamapi says, hands on his hips. 

"Don't make me punch you in the face, Yamapi," Kame says, relaxing back against the counter as Jin watches them both warily, like there's about to be a brawl. 

"Still sensitive about the 'boyfriend' word, I see," Yamapi teases, and Kame grins. 

"Not at all," Kame says, "Just letting you know that I won't be losing Jin's attention to you so easily this time."

Yamapi rolls his eyes. "Whatever, dork," he says, "Jin knows where the party's at."

"At Ryo's," Jin replies quickly, and Yamapi feigns a hit at him, and then Jin catches him in a headlock, and Kame just keeps grinning. 

"I want to know how you two manage to get anything done, ever," Kame says, and Jin releases Yamapi in favor of walking over and trapping Kame between his arms against the counter. "I also want to know how you don't get noise complaints, like, everyday."

"Want, want, want," Jin says, laughing. "I get you to admit one thing you want, and suddenly you want everything!" 

Kame laughs too, and he feels like he's bubbling over with joy. Jin is warm and reassuring in front of him. "Just you," he says. "You're enough."

Kame pretends not to hear Yamapi gagging as Jin leans in and captures his mouth in a kiss. It tastes like pudding.

It's perfect.

-

The sky is clear on _Tanabata._ Kame crosses the bridge of magpies. Jin is waiting for him with open arms.

In the summer night  
The evening still seems present,  
But the dawn is here.

To what region of the clouds  
Has the wandering moon come home?

\--Kiyohara no Fukayabu, 36


End file.
